


Mick Mercury and the Journey into Deep Space

by Manuscriptor



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Aliens, Asexual Character, Drug Use, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Mercury is the main character of his own story, Neo Pronouns, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, it's what he deserves, it/its pronouns, still used respectfully, used respectfully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-17 21:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21983530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manuscriptor/pseuds/Manuscriptor
Summary: Mick Mercury is having a midlife crisis. Both Juno and Sasha have amazing lives and are doing amazing things and going on amazing adventures. And what is he doing? Practically nothing.Mick does the only thing he knows how to--go on an epic bender and hope that his life someone magically changes.He somehow ends up off-planet and in way too deep. All he wants to do is get back to Mars safely, preferably in one piece. He's pretty sure no one is going to believe the story he'll have after this.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 6





	1. Mick starts out happy

Mick was having one of Those Days, and he realized that he was having a lot more of Those Days recently and maybe that wasn’t a good thing? I mean, who was he to say what was a good day and what was a bad day? Days happened and he lived his life, doing certain pyramid schemes to get pocket creds and napping in the solar flares of the sun when he could, but more often than not, at the end of the day, Mick found himself slumped in an Old Town bar nursing some watered down drink and trying not to cry over his life.

He saw the news about Jay. No mainstream articles but with the networks, you could find an article about anything and anyone that happened to exist in Hyperion at any given moment. He didn’t see anything about Sasha but that probably meant she was being just as successful as Jay. The more you didn’t hear about Dark Matters, the better.

Mick hadn’t done a single thing worthy of an article.

Wait a minute. Yes he had.

Just the other day he had seen a picture of himself spilling his drink all the way down his shirt. It hadn’t been an article, but a post from an Upper Class teen talking about how people from Old Town were slobs was hardly a compliment.

Even Mick couldn’t put a positive spin on that.

He sighed and took another long drink out of his glass, being careful not to spill it this time. It was so weak that it didn’t even burn the back of his throat. It was like yeast-y water and it was more of a disappointment than it was a help. Mick continued to drink it anyway, not wanting to waste the credits. This is what his life had come to.

Mick looked around the shady bar, not able to make out too many features of other customers due to the lowlight. That was probably on purpose. The bartender was an intimidating dude with two prosthetic arms that mixed drinks faster than Mick could track. He was the only one that was distinctly recognizable. Everyone else was skewed in shadows.

Mick considered ordering another drink but then didn’t want to make himself even sadder than before.

He downed the rest of his drink, left the correct number of credits and a little more on the table to pay, and ambled out of the bar, for some reason unable to stand the brooding anymore. He wasn’t sure where he was going, just knew that he couldn’t stay _there_.

He looked up through the dome as he walked. If he squinted, he could see the stars and other celestial bodies. The Sun wanting to burn them with radiation. The Earth in all its grey-brown glory, also trying to burn them with radiation. Wow, was all the universe trying to burn them with radiation?

Mick should pick up sunscreen from the store at some point. Walking around unprotected like he was couldn’t be healthy.

Mick wanted to be healthy.

Mick wanted to . . . not have a boring life.

How did he get a not boring life? He wished there was some product he could buy or a counselor he could talk to that would tell him what he needed to do. Maybe he should become a secret agent like Sasha. But no, he didn’t know what number to call to get in contact with a secret society. Maybe he could become a private eye like Jay. He always had a super interesting job plus he was always showing up in the paper as either a hero or an annoying vigilante. Both of which were better than town drunk and constant nuisance.

Mick was getting tired of those names.

How did one become a private eye though? Mick definitely had eyes but was definitely not private. He wasn't as smart or brooding as Jay and didn't have the skill of monologue-ing during inappropriate moments.

Maybe he wasn't cut out to be a private eye. 

Mick sighed and kicked an empty bottle that someone had left on the side of the street. He needed to _do_ something. He just wasn't sure what he needed to do. He didn't know what number to call. He didn't know a person to contact. If only there was a product he could use.

The fizz and pop of an old neon sign caught his attention, and Mick looked up, wondering what sinking business couldn't be bothered to repair their failing sign. The bright blue and pink stood out in the dark black of the sky, doing a very effective job of advertising Whores Whores Whores. But that wasn’t what caught Mick’s attention.

It was the sign underneath it.

Half of the neon tubes were smashed, but Mick could still pick out the image of a woman with her head tipped back. As the sign cycled through the motions, her arm would glitch up and toss a very obvious pink pill into her mouth. Then her arm would return to her side and the animation would start all over.

Drugs.

That was a product that Mick could buy if he wanted to change his life.

That was a _really good_ product that Mick could buy if he wanted to change his life.

He still had plenty of creds left on his card because he hadn't spent it all on cheap beer. He could probably afford the cheapest stuff which always tripped the hardest. He didn't care. It got him out of his mind and that's all Mick was looking for at the moment.

And maybe a chance to change his life.

Mick left a lot of his big life decisions up to his self-medicated self, whether on alcohol or drugs. He just thought better than Sober Mick, was a lot more fun, and had better ideas by a long shot. Sober Mick _loved_ Self-medicated Mick. He was a pretty cool dude.

So Mick stuffed his hands into his pockets, found the card of plastic that was still there, and ambled over to the entrance underneath the neon signs. He frequented places like this all the time and only a couple of times did he get kicked out on account of wild behavior. Everyone loved Self-medicated Mick as much as Sober Mick loved him. No one could stay angry for too long.

Mick pushed his way into the building and let his eyes adjust to the darkness.

The place wasn't empty, but it wasn't full either. The dimly lit area housed several round tables and a full, wall-to-wall bar on the far side of the room. A man that was mostly muscle was behind the counter, mixing drinks for the few patrons that were there. He caught Mick's eye but didn't look too impressed and went back to wiping out glasses.

“Hey there!” Mick said, walking right up to the counter and grabbing a seat. No point in being shy now.

The bartender looked him up and down. “What can I get for you?”

Mick pulled his card out of his pocket and set it on the counter. He knew better than to pull his hand away so he kept a tight grip on it, not making the same mistake for the maybe third time. “I saw your sign,” he said with a smile. “What can I get?”

The bartender just raised an eyebrow. “What sign?”

Mick mimed the action of popping a pill into his mouth, and the bartender rolled his eyes.

“Of course,” he said. “I mean, _what_ can I get you? Uppers? Downers? Trips? Knock outs?”

Now Mick just felt stupid. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Um, trips, I guess. If I could get one.”

With an under-the-breath grumble, the bartender snatched his card away from him and jammed it into a machine that was underneath the counter out of Mick’s sight. The bartender waited a moment, studying some screen and then pulling the card back out and sliding it across the counter to Mick. His face remained stoic, if slightly annoyed, and he wiped his hands on a dish towel before tossing it aside.

“Come with me,” he said, stepping out from behind the bar and walking across the room to a door. He fished a key out of his pocket and inserted it, twisting it and opening the door with a shove.

Mick followed him into the dark space, walking down a shadowy hallway and to another door that the man scanned open with his fingerprint. He pulled this one open and motioned for Mick to walk inside. He didn't look like he would be followed.

“Talk to the woman with the blue teeth,” he said unhelpfully.

Mick swallowed his doubts and stepped into the equally shadowy room, immediately getting a lungful of smoke. The door was shut behind him, and Mick froze in place for a moment as he waited for his eyes to adjust. When he finally could see, he was glad he hadn't moved.

The entire room was carpeted with prone bodies, dozens of patrons stoned out of their minds and enjoying whatever drug that they had purchased. On the far side of the room, next to a lantern that was the only source of light was the woman that the man had been talking about. She was counting through a thick stack of bills when Mick walked in but quickly stuffed them out of sight. She beamed at him, showing off dentures made out of some sort of blue crystal.

The woman with the blue teeth.

“Hello!” she said, folding her hands in front of her. She sounded young and youthful, not like she should be working in the drug den. “What can I get for you tonight?”

Mick almost jokingly said “what he's having” but most of the people were drooling with their eyes rolled back into their skulls, and Mick wasn’t sure if he had enough faith to take whatever they took.

“A trip,” he said, stepping up to the counter. “Uh, not something too intense.” He glanced over at the comatose, drooling form of a man slumped on the counter. “Enough to get me _off the planet_.” Using teen slang always showed that he knew what he was talking about and let the dealer know he couldn't be slighted by cuts drugs or anything cheap.

“Of course!” the woman said with a brilliant flash of blue teeth as she smiled wide. “Let me see what I have.”

She disappeared through a door behind the counter and was gone for several minutes, long enough that Mick started to rock back and forth on his heels, whistling a short tune while he waited. The woman finally appeared with a needle filled with a suspicious looking pale green liquid. She set it carefully on the counter for Mick’s inspection.

“I think that is what you’re looking for,” she said as she settled back in her seat. “Within your price range, of course.”

Mick swallowed, suddenly double thinking this plan of action. He had no idea what was in the needle. He didn’t know what it would do to him. It felt embarrassing to ask. He gingerly picked up the syringe instead, holding it up to the light to study the liquid a little bit better.

It didn’t _look_ particularly dangerous. In fact, it looked pretty harmless.

What the hell did he have to lose? Jay and Sasha were off living amazing lives and doing amazing things and meeting amazing people. Mick wanted the same thing. This was his chance to do just that.

With a shrug and a “what could possibly go wrong,” Mick rolled his sleeve up, found the vein on his inner forearm, and stuck himself with easy practice. He dispensed the plunger and then returned the empty syringe to the woman who accepted it with a blue smile. She gestured to the room filled with prone bodies.

“Take a spot wherever you’d like,” she said. “Anywhere you can get comfortable.” 

“Thanks,” Mick said, although he was starting to feel a little outside of himself already.

It was a familiar, comforting sensation, one that Mick had felt many times before. Maybe whatever was in the syringe was something that he had taken before at some point in his life. He didn’t think to ask for the name of whatever it was.

He drunkenly scanned the room, looking for a spot to collapse and enjoy floating outside of himself. Everything was already starting to fuzz and swim, the colors bleeding into each other and swirl around in hypnotizing patterns.

It was nice. Very nice.

Mick was barely aware of the way he staggered out of the door and down the hall. It was a little bit dangerous to leave the bar while he was tripping out of his ass, but he wanted to experience the world with this new and marvelous perspective. Mick was giggling as he collapsing in the arms of two very strong, very attractive men.

It was as if he could feel their energy and it flowed into him in a way that was warm and comfortable.

Mick didn’t think to fight back. These men were so nice and caring as they pulled him into their warm caring arms. Mick wasn’t even sure where they were taking him. Probably somewhere warm and nice, somewhere just like them.

A cold bottle was propped into his hand and fingers helped him raise it to his lips, tipping it back so that the contents flowed into his mouth and down his throat without resistance. Happy, nice voices encouraged him to continue swallowing, and Mick giggled as he did, emptying the bottle in third person as if he wasn’t himself.

Mick liked this.

He could forget about his life like this.

All he had to focus on was the hands holding him up and the bottle in his hand and the way he didn’t have to be himself right now. It was the best feeling in the world.

He didn’t have to think about Jay or Sasha or how his life was shit and spiraling into even more shit. He could forget about everything else and just live in the moment as a ball of strange energy or some sort of shifting light and colors. Mick wasn’t really sure what he was at the moment besides happy and warm and cared for in the multitude or arms that were holding him.

He didn’t know who or what or where he was.

And Mick was just happy.


	2. Mick becomes a little confused

Mick didn’t really wake up fully for a while. He stayed floaty, and the world stayed fuzzy and just enough out of focus for him to not question anything that was happening. He accepted whatever bottles were propped into his hands and swallowed whatever pills were waved in front of his face. It was easy to exist, for once, instead of having to constantly think.

He was surrounded by warm, happy people who made it easy to be warm and happy himself. Mick didn’t question anything, so when the trip finally started to wear off and colors weren’t screaming at him so loud, Mick was finally able to catch his breath and see his surroundings and try to figure out where he had ended up.

Except. Except he didn’t recognize where he had ended up.

He didn’t recognize anything.

Even his clothes were different. 

He was laying in what looked like a medical cot, wearing what looked like medical scrubs, surrounded by what looked like medical equipment.

Mick was confused as hell.

Of course, he had come out of worse trips in worse situations. In the middle of bank heists, in the middle of poker games, in the middle of having his portrait painted (which was definitely one of the weirder ones). No big deal. He had sobered up at parties, on the toilet, in the middle of a marathon, hell, he had sobered up in some very weird places.

This one was . . . a little more weird than normal. Because, at very least, all those other times he had still woken up with his own clothes either on or near him. It was disconcerting knowing that, while he had been out, someone had stripped and changed him without him remembering a thing. Mick ran a hand through his hair and cursed.

Apparently they had bathed him too. Mother fucks.

Mick pulled back the blanket over his legs and swung them over the side of the bed. He winced at the movement and almost threw up. Okay, fast movements bad. He would have to take this slow. He gingerly pushed himself to his feet, bracing his hand on the edge of the bed so that he didn’t topple over immediately. He waited for the room to stop swimming before even _thinking_ about moving around.

He couldn’t rest for long though. He had to figure out where he was and what had happened. Mick knew from experience that it was never good to stick in one place after waking up. Anything could happen and he was hardly in a position to fight back. 

Mick gently nursed his throbbing headache and recovered enough that movement wouldn't be completely impossible. He took a moment to look around the room a bit more, trying to figure out if he recognized any of the equipment.

Nope.

He didn’t know why he would but it was always worth a try. It was all medical equipment, absolutely nothing that he had seen before. Oh well. Mick wasn’t here to learn. He just had to get out alive.

With a knuckle pressed against his temple, Mick staggered out of the room, regretting the needle and the drugs and whatever else he had taken while he had been blacked out. Maybe a bender hadn’t been the answers to his problems. Well, he couldn’t change the past, only move on from what had been done. Mick had done it before and he’d do it again.

The door to the room was unlocked, thankfully. With none of his usual equipment, Mick wasn’t sure what he would have done if the door had been locked. Oh well.

He made his way slowly down the long white corridor, using the wall as a support so he could continue on. He needed to find a map or a window or something, anything that could help him orientate himself in this strange new world that he had found himself in. As soon as he could do that, the sooner Mick could charm his way out of here.

Wherever ‘here’ was.

There was another door at the end of the hallway that was just as unlocked as the one to his room. Mick pushed his way through and was relieved to see a huge window stretching the entire extent of the next room. Finally, some answers. Mick hurried over, ready to figure out where he was and what he needed to do to get out of here. He pressed his hands against the surprisingly thick glass, having to squint to make out the blurry shapes on the other side.

Oh shit.

That was Mars.

Mick was 80% sure that _that_ —the vaguely round shaped red blob—was _Mars_.

And he wasn't on Mars.

Oh shit!

Mick was starting to panic a bit now. What kind of trip did he go on that he ended up off-planet?! Where the hell was here and how did he get back down to Mars? Was he on a fucking spaceship? Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!! Mick had to get out of here! He had to find his clothes and the rest of his stuff and _leave_. He pushed away from the window and scanned for another door, his throbbing headache now the least of his worries.

There was one across the room from him with no keypad or lock by the looks of it. If he were lucky, maybe Mick could just walk out without anyone noticing. Luck wasn't always Mick's strong suit, but maybe just this once. Well, maybe he would get lucky.

His hand was on the doorknob when it turned on its own accord and swung inward, slamming him right in the face hard enough for him to see stars. He was on the floor, sprawled on his ass before he even realized what was happening.

“Oh my god! I didn't think anyone else would be awake. Sorry about that.”

Mick blinked to clear his vision and looked up to see who had so brutally attacked him.

They were humanoid at least. Two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears. The right amount of everything as far as Mick was concerned. Their braided black hair was pulled up in two buns on either side of a silver metal wedge that ran like from their forehead to the back of their neck. Like some sort of mohawk but made out of metal. It was glowing a faint orange.

“Hello?” the person said, peering over him with a look of concern. “I didn't knock your brains out, did I? Shit! Please tell me you speak English.”

“Uh, yeah, English. I speak English,” Mick said, finally pulling himself together. He pushed himself to his feet and held his head, waiting for the throbbing pain to pass before addressing this new person again. “Who are you? And where are we?”

“The SC Utopia,” the person said. “The colonizing ship being sent to Beta 96a.” They stuck out a hand. “I'm Beyoncé. Everyone calls me Bee though.”

“Bee,” Mick repeated, not sure if he should be handing over his name so easily.

Bee nodded. “I was named after an ancient goddess. My parents said, at least. Apparently she saved the world at some point?” Bee shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s kinda dramatic if you ask me.”

“Mick,” Mick said, deciding that it wasn’t like he would be able to escape all on his own. He would need help and Bee was the best option at the moment, so it was best to stay on the good side of everyone. “Just Mick. And, uh, how should I address you?” Mick had found, in his experience, that it was always best to ask how someone wanted to be addressed to avoid offending and to appear as friendly as possible. He had gotten into way too many fist fights to not learn his lesson.

Bee pointed to the strange technology on their head. “Orange,” they said. “That means I’m somewhere in the middle. Or, like, just completely off the spectrum.”

Mick didn’t understand. “Spectrum of?”

Bee snorted. “Of gender, doofus. The higher-ups in charge of SC Utopia understood that choosing people that adhere to strict gender roles would be a mistake. So, ta da! Here I am! What about you?”

“Uh, he, him,” Mick said. “Just. . . . firmly a dude. I think? Never questioned it at least.”

Bee wrinkled their nose. “Then why did the Highers chose you? Or are you a scientist? An engineer? Someone else smart?”

Mick shook his head. “Of course not,” he said. “I’m . . . not really that special. I just need to get back to Mars really. Do you know if the ship is landing any time soon? I’d really hate to be in the way whenever you guys leave to wherever you’re going. You know?”

“I don’t know,” Bee said, stuffing their hands in their pockets and rocking back and forth on their heels. “But I do know that we aren’t going back to Mars. At least, not until we’ve gone to Beta 96a first. The Highers want a colony and that’s why we’re here.”

Mick looked back over his shoulder at the frosted glass and the smudge of red that was behind it.

Oh shit.

He looked back at Bee.

“Uh, I don’t think you understand. The . . . Highers or whatever, didn’t chose me to go on this trip. I never wanted to leave Mars. I was. . . I was high for the last couple of days. Did I sign something that I can’t remember?” Mick grabbed Bee without thinking and shook them. “Did I sign something that I can’t remember?!”

“Geez, dude, I don’t know,” Bee said. They didn’t push him away though. “ _I_ didn’t sign anything. What are you even talking about?”

Mick’s stomach was in his feet as he turned back to the window and pressed his face against it.

Mars seemed so far away.

Mars had never seemed so far away.

And then Mick saw the floating directional lights and the wireframe of the launch path that orbited Mars like a ring from Saturn. It was a familiar sight, almost. Mick was used to seeing it from the ground, looking up at the hulking metal structure and telling all his friends that he had ridden it and survived, telling all his friends how he had crashed a hover board and still managed to make it out alive with all his fingers to spare.

The Freeway. Like Mick had never seen it before.

And by the position of the spacecraft he was in now, it looked like he was going to ride it. He was gonna ride it straight off Mars to wherever the hell Bee was talking about. Some shit colony. Whatever it was. _Mick was going to ride the Freeway off of Mars._ If this were any other situation on any other day, he might even be excited.

“Oh my god,” he said, his breath fogging up the class and obscuring his already obscure view even more. He looked back at Bee who was looking at him like he was insane. Mick jabbed a finger against the glass. “That’s the Freeway!”

Bee rolled their eyes. “Yeah, it is,” they said. “How else do you think we were going to launch?”

“Oh my god,” Mick breathed, laughing even though he was absolutely fucking terrified. “Oh my god? We’re going to ride the Freeway!”

“Honestly, dude, I don’t see why this is so important,” Bee said.

The spacecraft suddenly rumbled beneath their feet, and maybe Mick was imagining things but he was pretty sure they were starting to move. Starting to move as in grinding along the path of the Freeway and slowly picking up speed and by slowly, Mick meant very slowly. It would take them a while before they broke atmosphere if this was how they were going to travel. It was still exhilarating.

“Hey, easy, dude,” Bee said, grabbing Mick and pulling him away from the window. “We need to get strapped it before things get rough.”

“Rough?” Mick repeated, but Bee suddenly yanked him along with a lot more strength than he had been expecting.

He barely even had a choice in the matter as Bee pulled him quickly through the halls, taking turns confidently and easily until they arrived at a small pod-like room with four seats, two on each wall facing each other. They shoved Mick down into one and pulled the belts down over his head and up between his legs, snapping them together over his stomach.

“Hey!” Mick said, immediately pulling at the belts and finding absolutely no purchase. He even picked at the buckle but couldn’t figure out how it was supposed to work.

Bee only smiled at him. “Child proof.” They were in their own seat them, fastening the belts tight and settling in comfortably, acting like this was no big deal whatsoever.

Mick sputtered, still picking at the buckle. “I’m not a child!”

Bee just shrugged. “If it works, it works. Settle in. Take off takes around half a sol. Please tell me you don’t get motion sickness.”

Mick shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been this high up in a vehicle before.”

With one gigantic lurch, the spacecraft started forward and began to pick up speed, the low hum turning into an insistent buzz as the engines worked overtime to get the huge thing going. Mick’s stomach left from his feet to his throat, and he suddenly realized exactly what Bee was talking about. Not that he had very much to throw up, but stomach bile was still always an option.

“Oh, yeah,” he grunted, clamping a hand over his mouth in an attempt to keep everything down. “I think I get motion sickness.”

“Just hang on,” Bee said, fumbling with a panel in the wall next to them and straining to see the different buttons they were pushing. They finally seemed to finish what they were doing because they punched a final button and then braced themselves back in the seat.

Mick was just about to empty whatever was in his stomach when the pod shuddered once and then fell still as whatever stabilizers Bee had activated finally started to work. It was a blessing sent from heaven. Mick swallowed the small bit of bile that had come up into his mouth and slumped in his seat. Oh boy, he was not made for space travel.

“When can I get back to Mars?” he asked, taking deep breaths so that his stomach stayed calm in the aftermath of such chaos.

Bee gave him a strange look and fiddled with a couple more buttons. “Back to Mars?” they said. “Dude, were you not paying attention to the last fifteen minutes of conversation? We’re going to Beta 96a. We’ve got to build up a colony there and establish some housing and businesses. You know?”

Mick grunted and was pretty sure his stomach wasn’t going to suddenly rebel against him so he straightened in his seat. “Yeah, I got all that,” he said. “After that though. How long before we go back to Mars. I don’t think I can be gone for too long.”

Bee snorted, typing in some sort of code that opened another panel right above the first. They pulled out a tray that held two syringes encased in protective foam. They pulled both out and slid the container back into its spot.

“You really don’t understand, do you?” they said and offered one of the needles to Mick.

He took it, because after all the drugs and questionable substances he had done already, a needle wasn’t that scary. At least the liquid inside was clear, and that was better than anything he had seen in a while.

“No, I don’t think I do,” he said, because he wasn’t embarrassed to admit when he didn’t understand things. Jay and Sasha were constantly reminding him how stupid he was.

“We’ve got to go to Beta 96a,” Bee said. “Set up a colony. Build houses. Establish an atmosphere. Make the place livable. Potentially start water mining. We've got a lot of work to do. It'll take us a while.”

Mick swallowed hard and wondered if he could break through the seat buckle with strength alone. “How long is a while?”

Bee unzipped a section on their space suit and with their teeth, uncapped the needle, spitting the plastic top onto the floor. “Like, a couple decades?” they said. “Maybe a hundred years? Who knows, really, just however long it takes for us to build a livable commune.”

Mick suddenly felt very faint and he didn’t think it was because of the space travel. Wait, maybe it was exactly because of the space travel. He wanted to throw up again.

“I suggest you stick yourself,” Bee said, settling back in their chair. “The ride is going to take a couple years and that’ll help you sleep through it.”

Mick didn't even need the needle. For some reason, as soon as he heard the news, his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.


	3. Mick is just a little scared

The next time Mick woke up, things were very, very different. He was no longer strapped to his chair anymore and he wasn't wearing any medical clothes or a space suit. He was lying flat on a bed, actually the one that he had first woken up in. As soon as he sat up though, there was no headache or stomach sickness. He actually felt pretty good.

Mick still made a note to stop passing out at inappropriate times.

He was wearing what looked like super casual scrubs, more like lounge clothes than anything else. And they were very comfortable. Mick could easily continue wearing them other than the fact that they weren't _his clothes_. He was wondering when he was going to get his stuff back because he was starting to get concerned.

It didn’t seem like he was on the spacecraft anymore though. Which was a good thing? Maybe?

He would have to find out.

He pushed himself up for the second time all too soon in his life and steeled himself for whatever he found outside of the house. Whatever Beta 96a was.

And.

It wasn’t as bad as he had been expecting.

The huge dome swept over the livable area very much like it was like on Mars, enclosing the atmosphere and keeping the air breathable. That was about the only finished structure currently. The house he had walked out of was half-done, the roof and most of the other rooms just scaffolding. There were several other houses in similar states of construction.

Mick immediately spotted Bee straddling the top beam of the house next to his. The fin on top of their head was glowing a shimmery pink now though, instead of the orange from before. They were also wearing heavy work clothes, the thick silver material usually reserved for construction workers and other dangerous occupations. Mick was jealous in an instant, wondering why they got cool clothing and he looked he like was going to do morning exercises.

He waved, trying not to overthink it.

Bee waved back. “Hey! Glad to see you finally up.” They slid off of their perched and bounced down to the ground with surprising agility, landing safely a couple feet away from Mick. “I was scared the trip took it out of you. If you hadn’t have woken up in the next couple days, I probably would have had to shock you or something.”

Mick shuddered at that. He had been shocked before and it was never a pleasant experience. Instead of acknowledging the horror of that option, he gestured to the top of his own head. “Fin?” he asked. “And how long was I out for?”

“She, her,” Bee said with an easy smile. “The pink, I mean.” She checked a device strapped to her wrist. “Only three years, dude. That’s pretty good. The ship kept you in stasis for it though, so you don’t have to worry about getting old or cells aging and that shit. Yeah?”

Three years.

Holy fuck.

Mick had been off of Mars for three years and it only felt like he had been gone for a day. He wasn’t sure if his mind could handle that sort to time twist. In fact, he could feel a headache coming on. Did they have medicine here? Mick could go for a drink. Did they have _alcohol_ here?! Mick wanted to throw up, but after three years, there wasn’t really much left in his stomach.

He ended up bent over, leaning against one of the construction beams for support while he dry-heaved and Bee rubbed his back to get him through it.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Long trips like that will take it out of anyone.”

“I want to go home,” Mick moaned pathetically, clutching his stomach in case it tried to get rid of anything else. “I didn’t sign up for any of this. I want to go back to Mars now, please.”

“Once we’re finished with our work, we can go back,” Bee said as if that was supposed to be reassuring. “But the Highers are paying us to be here. We can’t just leave whenever we want. Don’t worry though, once we’re done with construction, I’m sure you can go back, no questions asked.”

Mick sniffed and wiped his mouth off. “How long will construction take?”

“Well,” Bee said. “With our pod, it’s just us working, so I’m going to guess . . . five to ten years?”

Mick had to pause the conversation again as his stomach started heaving again and he was crying all over again. The space travel was definitely getting to him. Yeah, that was it. Mick threw up another mouthful of bile and spit and had to spend another several minutes getting his stomach back under control. Bee rubbed his back the whole time.

“I'm sorry,” he managed to say. “I never wanted to come here. I just . . . I don't know what happened.”

“It's okay,” Bee said. “Look, I'll work extra hard so we can get done as fast as possible. In fact, maybe some of the others can come over from their pods to help when they get done.”

“Other people?” Mick repeated, finally pushing himself back to his feet for a second time.

Maybe that was the key! Surely, somewhere in the other pods, there were people like Mick who didn’t want to be here and wanted to go home just as much as he did. They could all go back together on the same ship, and the people who did want to be here, like Bee, could continue whatever work they were supposed to do.

“How do I get to the other pods?” he asked. “Bee! I need to get to the other pods!”

“That . . . might be a bit difficult,” she said. “The atmosphere of this planet . . . I mean, it’s definitely not good for anyone with human lungs. They’d freeze the moment you inhaled.” She gestured to the dome around them. “That’s why this was the first thing constructed.”

“There’s no way to travel between them?” Mick said, his plan falling apart before it even had the chance to start.

Bee shook her head. “That’s why we have to build,” she said. “The pods sustain one to two people and once we connect, we’ll have more resources. Get it?”

“I get it,” Mick said sadly. “But I need to get back to Mars. Don’t you understand? I don’t belong here! I didn’t agree to come and all . . . . all I want to do is go back home.” Was he crying? He was definitely not crying.

Bee just sighed. “Look, I can contact the other pods if you want.” She walked over to where their ship was parked at the other side of their dome space which wasn’t that spacious.

She fiddled with some sort of opening on its side and then pulled out a device that she held to her ear. As she leaned against the side, looking nonchalant, the beacon on her head shifted from pinkish red to a purple-ish blue. Mick took that cue for what it was worth.

“Hey,” Bee said to whoever was on the other line. He gave Mick an odd look and then put a hand over his mouth to whisper privately into the receiver.

Mick rolled his eyes but looked away respectfully as he talked.

_Stupid planet. Stupid trip. Stupid everything_ , Mick thought. He just wanted to get off this crazy globe and back with his feet on Mars. Was that too much to ask? Mick never thought he would miss the red dust that made him cough and all the street gangs that made you fear for your life as soon as you stepped outside. That was _home_. And Mick wanted to go back home.

Bee hung the phone up and headed back towards him, looking much more serious that before.

“Here’s the thing,” he said once he reached Mick’s side. “We were hired to do a job. Me and all the other workers still have to complete that job. You can leave on your own if you want—we’ll even given you a ship and supplies. Or you could stick around and help us work and then head back with the rest of us once it’s time to go. Extra hands means less work.”

“I think I’ll take my chances with the ship,” Mick said, shoving his hands in his pockets and throwing back his shoulders.

“I should also say,” Bee said. “That we can’t spare any juice or tech related to jumping. It’ll take you the same three years and you’ll be conscious for all of it. Plus out of stasis. So you’ll age and everything.”

Mick shrugged. “I’ll take the risk,” he said. “Better than staying here.”

Bee just shrugged too. “Alright,” he said. “No shit off my back. Here, I’ll show you what you can take.”

He walked over to the ship that was parked where it had landed and he pulled open a hatch to lead inside. He jumped up quickly, and Mick wasn’t sure if he was supposed to follow or not. He decided to stay where he was, as that was the safest option to him. Sure enough, it was only a couple minutes later before a large chunk of the ship detached with a metallic clunk, leaving a separate ship large enough for one person travel.

It took another several minutes before Bee walked out again, going through a bag clearing made for space travel. Apparently satisfied, he offered it to Mick.

“Here,” he said. “A travel suit, the accessories—everything you need. If you want to go through the whole ship, feel free. I’d hate for you to leave without everything you need.”

Mick couldn’t tell if Bee was being sincere or sarcastic. He decided to be more optimistic and choose sincere. He accepted the bag, choosing not to look through it as a show of trust. An effort to leave the planet he had been on for barely five minutes in good graces with the one and only occupant.

Well, not only. Bee mentioned others who were building somewhere else on this place.

“Thank you,” Mick said. “For everything. Even though this has been . . . . weird. I think. I don’t even think we’ve known each other for more than a day?”

Bee just shrugged and smirked. “And yet we’ve travelled across the galaxy together. Strange how that works, isn’t it?”

Mick nodded because it was strange. “It was very nice to meet you though,” he said. “Sorry it couldn’t have been under better circumstances.” 

“Well, you'd better get back to Mars,” Bee said, gesturing behind himself to the ship. “It sounds like you've got important stuff that you need to get back to.”

Mick swallowed because that was a lie. “Yeah,” he lied. “Important stuff.”

He slung the bag over his shoulder and boarded the ship then, easily finding the cockpit and bridge which was clearly made to be run by a single person. He dumped the bag on the floor next to the driver's seat and sat down for himself. The best option, obviously, was to just start punching random buttons and seeing what happened. Mick did just that.

And honestly, it only took a couple tries before the dash lit up and the whole ship rumbled to life beneath him. Mick grinned in satisfaction and grabbed the levers that were very clearly the steering mechanism of the whole thing. He would give the engines a moment to warm up a bit more and then would attempt take off. In his button pressing, Mick must've found the one that opened the windshield because the opaque outside layer of the ship folded into itself into a clear layer that allowed Mick to see outside.

He could see Bee standing a safe distance away from the ship now, waving at him. He tapped some device onto his ear and Mick’s radio crackled to life.

“I’m going to open the dome so you can get out,” he said. “It’ll take a moment, since I need to put on something to help me breathe. Don’t take off like an asshole.”

Mick nodded and gave him a wave and a thumbs up because he wasn’t sure if Bee could hear him if he spoke.

Bee messed around with some sort of storage unit and pulled a helmet on, attaching it to his suit, having to take a moment to get his hair to cooperate enough to get it inside. It was then a moment longer as he made sure the seal was tight and secure. Once he was finally ready, he shot Mick another thumbs up.

Mick returned the gesture and pressed the buttons that he was eighty percent sure sent gas to the engine of the escape pod. Sure enough, with a soft hum, the machine came to life around him. Mick gripped the controllers tight and watched as the dome above him folded over on itself and opened up into open space.

_Literal open space._

Mick waited until he was sure he would have enough room to take off and then eased the controllers down, propelling the ship slowly upwards. As soon as he cleared the dome, he would apply more speed and truly be out of here.

He craned his neck to check the edges of the hole to make sure he didn’t scrape off anything important. But nope, the hole was plenty wide enough for his escape pod and a moment later, he was outside of the dome and out into space. He swallowed hard, because he now he wouldn’t be able to land and exit his ship on the planet.

From his new vantage point, Mick could see that the dome only took up a significantly small space on the surface of the planet. And on the horizon to the left, slightly obscured by craggy rocks and mountains, Mick could see the light of another dome. And to the left of that Mick could see the light of another dome. And another. And another. If he squinted, Mick could count around six additional domes not counting theirs, though they were miles away and would not be able to reach or even want to reach.

His goal was Mars and nowhere else was particularly interesting.

Mick took a moment to check his stabilizers and the internal pressure of the cabin just to make sure that he wouldn’t dehydrate and freeze hours within his trip. That would defeat the whole point of leaving Beta 96a in the first place.

Everything looked in order though, and there was no delaying in any longer.

Was Mick nervous?

No.

Maybe.

Yes.

Mick didn’t know how to pilot a spaceship any longer than a couple minutes. Only once or twice when he had been back on Mars, Mick had occasionally needed to catch a ride to avoid getting caught by one angry person or another. All those times had been successful except for the one time that he had crashed but he had gotten out before the flames had gotten too intense so everything had been fine. Mick hoped this ship wouldn’t be like that one.

He took a huge breath in an attempt to calm himself but it didn’t really do anything helpful.

It was almost a relief when the radio crackled and Mick had an excuse to hover over the dome a bit more. He expected Bee’s voice to come through. He expected a goddamn _human_ voice to come through the radio.

Instead, though, the speakers buzzed to life and a harsh clicking filled the cabin, harsh enough to make Mick wince and pull his hands off of the controls.

“What the fuck?” he grunted. “Bee! Bee? Are you there? What’s going on?”

The clicking stopped for a moment, as if to let him speak, and Mick almost passed it up as some sort of technical difficulty until the patchy, buzzing voice of an automatic translator came through the radio next.

“Hello, common-speaking organism,” the robotic voice said. “You cannot have colonies here. This place is.” The voice dissolved into crackling static as the translator wasn’t able to handle whatever was being said. “Under control of.” More static. “You need to leave. There is danger. We will remove you.”

“Hey, Bee!” Mick yelled, not even sure if his radio was connected to him anymore. “What the fuck is going on?”

His entire front window was suddenly eclipsed as a ship, far larger than his small escape pod and far larger than the dome that Mick had taken off from. It looked blatantly like foreign tech, the outside metal nothing that Mick even remotely recognized. No ports. No windows. Not even an emblem or name painted on the side. No way to identify the newcomers.

No way to know if they were friend or foe.

As it flew closer, it took over the entire horizon of the planet, overshadowing the skyline and ruining Mick’s view of open space. From his point of view, it looked bigger than the planet altogether. And whatever was driving it had to be just as big.

“You need to leave,” the robotic voice repeated.

“I’m trying! I’m trying!” Mick said.

He wrenched the controls to the left, trying to steer around the bulk of the front end of the new ship. It was so huge though and so dangerous looking and Mick’s hands were shaking and sweaty and he wanted to pee his pants.

“Standby,” the robotic voice said, and the entire front of the huge ship opened up into a huge, gaping maw that looked like it was going to eat him alive. “We will board.” The entire ship moved forward to engulf him.

Oh, yeah, now Mick was definitely going to pee his pants.


	4. Mick swears

The hanger that Mick found himself come to rest in was a looming cavern, bigger than any hanger had any right being. Nothing and no one could possible need this much storage space and yet, here Mick was. He didn’t dare get out of his ship. Instead, he huddled in the seat and tried not to imagine every kind of creature or monster that was waiting just inside the shadows.

He sunk down further in his seat, wondering if he could be seen through the front window of his ship.

A sharp knocking on the side of his pod made him jump and fall onto the floor, startled so much that he couldn’t even think to scream. Mick couldn’t do anything for a moment, frozen and terrified, until the knock came again. And he didn’t want to anger whoever was outside by making them wait.

“Coming!” he yelled. And then remembered that whoever had connected to his radio hadn’t initially spoken English. He didn’t know what else to say though.

He also didn’t know exactly how to open the door and it took a couple minutes of just hitting random buttons before the pressure of the room fell and the side of the pod slid open.

Was it bad that he didn’t see anything right away?

Yes, that was definitely bad.

Mick wasn’t sure if he was supposed to step out into the darkness of the hanger and into the danger that was most definitely waiting for him. Whether the . . . host or whoever had captured him, was friendly or not. And his life was not something Mick normally liked gambling with. Normally.

“Hello?” he called to the darkness, not daring to raise his voice louder than normal talking volume.

There was a beat of silence, which meant a moment of panic, and then there came a series of clicks similar to what had some over the radio before the translator had been used, which meant another moment of panic and Mick now knew, without a doubt, that whatever was waiting for him outside of his ship was definitely not human.

An insect like hand curled around the door, claws digging into the metal with a crunch. Another hand grabbed the other side of the door. And then two more curled around the edges, as if trying to pry the door apart at its seams.

Four hands.

Four arms.

And all four of them pulled an elongated, grey alien head through the doorway to peer into the inside of the ship. A forked tongue slipped out between the slight fangs, as if tasting the air. Four eyes, the pairs stacked on top of each other, blinked and flicked around.

They settled directly on Mick.

“Ah!” the thing said, letting out a breath. It clicked from somewhere in its throat, speaking its language that Mick couldn’t understand.

“Fuck,” Mick muttered.

The creature—Mick felt awkward calling it an alien, that somehow seemed offensive—pulled more of itself into the chamber. It stood tall, on two wide clawed feet, double jointed legs. Its obviously muscular body was covered in gun-metal grey scale armor, protecting what Mick assumed were all the important organs. Dangerous, foreign, and so obviously from the dark reaches of space.

It clicked at Mick and then with one hand, reached up to press some sort of device on its head. It then blinked at Mick again.

“Greetings,” a distinctly female voice said. “Please no fear. I am not human, I promise. Mean no harm.”

That was absolutely _not_ reassuring to Mick in anyway.

“You are human,” the thing said, stepping even further into the ship. The metal groaned under its weight. “What are you doing so far from home planet?”

“It was an accident!” Mick blurted because that really was the truth. “I’m not supposed to be here, I swear! I was just trying to get back to Mars.” He gestured at the small ship around him. “That’s all! Just want to get home.”

The thing cocked its head, almost twisting its skull completely around before righting itself. “Well then,” it said. “Come. We will do introductions. Then we will figure out things.”

Mick hesitated for a moment longer and then relented. This thing was strange but didn’t seem completely hostile, though Mick had yet to see what the claws at the ends of its arms and legs were for. Still, it was better to remain compliant and hospitable and get on the good side of this thing rather than provoke it right away.

He stood tall, with his shoulders back, trying to exude as much confidence as possible. But not too much confidence that the creature would take it as hostility. He slumped back down again. But he didn’t want to appear weak, so he straightened back up.

The creature backed out of the door since it was too large to turn around and after a moment, Mick followed it out into the darkness of the hanger.

Now that he was out in the open and not in the enclosed space of the small escape pod, Mick could see the enormity of the creature. It was nearly twice his size in bulk, standing upright on two legs, but only a head or so taller than him. It was mostly grey-skinned, fading into purple-ish near its face, hands, feet, and shoulders. Mick was still trying to decide if the darker grey patches were armored clothing or just more scales.

  
It had four arms and two sets of shoulders to accommodate them, meaning its back was wide and muscled. Its head was oblong and snake-like with four eyes, two stacked on top of two. Two blunted horns jutted off the back of the creature's head, really only two inches long. It didn’t look like anything remotely human but for some reason, Mick didn’t feel completely terrified.

“Come,” the creature said, its voice coming from the small silver device clipped to one of the horns. “I will show you.”

Mick swallowed and nodded and followed as the creature turned and walked towards the far end of the hanger. It walked with a sort of hopping lope. Since its legs appeared to be double jointed, it could compress and stretch and sort of bounce as it moved.

It led Mick through several different doors, scanning one of its claws on a pad next to each one. The entire ship was made of a metallic material that Mick didn’t recognize. He tentatively brushed his hand along it and found it weirdly warm and not as stiff as any sort of plastic or metal. He kept his hands to himself after that.

They finally arrived what could only be a meeting room. A round, oblong table stretched the length of the room, surrounded by at least a dozen chairs. To Mick’s surprise, another creature, very similar to the first except with slightly longer horns, stood at the front of the room.

And standing next to it was Bee.

Their fin was a color that Mick hadn’t seen yet. The front started as a yellow-orange fading to dark orange and then at the back it was completely black. Mick didn’t know what it was supposed to mean but he figure asking was the best idea at this point.

But he also wasn’t sure if he was allowed to talk in front of the creatures.

“Mick,” Bee said stiffly.

“Bee,” Mick said, just as stiffly, imitated Bee’s formal speech. He gestured to the top of his head as vaguely as he could.

“Ey, Eym,” Bee said without missing a beat.

The creature that had arrived with Mick cocked its head. “Titles?” it said. “You exchange titles?”

Bee nodded, still stiff and on guard. “Of course,” ey said. “It’s a sort of . . . . a tradition for us. May I ask what we may address you as?”

Mick was pretty sure ey was lying about the whole thing being a tradition but he wasn’t about to protest to it. Not with the two creatures looming over them.

The creature that had walked with Mick cocked its head and thought about it for a long moment. “I do not think your language has a title for what I am,” it said slowly. It looked to Bee. “Though you seem to understand our language more than most.

Bee nodded eyis head with a small smile. “Trust me. It’s difficult. Just do your best.”

The creature thought about it a bit longer and nodded. “After searching databases,” it said. “I think I have found a term I am comfortable with. In your language, it is pronounced . . . She.”

Mick blinked in surprise because that was not the title he would have chosen, but Bee was already nodding respectively.

“Of course. We will refer to you as such.”

The second creature was chittering excitedly, not having the translation piece but clearly in awe over the fin on top of Bee’s head. It clicked and chittered at the first creature, gesturing at the fin with all four hands.

“She would also like to be referred to with the title as she,” the first creature said.

“Do you have names to go along with these titles?” Bee asked, ever the patient one.

This prompted a whole new series of clicks and chatters and growls at the creatures discussed their options with each other.

“Apologies,” the first creature said. “Our names do not translate to your language. We shall do our best to choose something similar.”

There was another short round of discussion, and the second creature hissed and chittered slowly. The first considered what had been said for a moment and then nodded.

“She thinks . . . . Cecilia is close enough,” she said.

Bee nodded. “And for you?”

“Priscilla,” the creature answered promptly, very pleased with herself at this choice it seemed.

Bee nodded. “Priscilla and Cecilia, is it alright if I ask about the planet you took us from? I was sent there under the impression that it was unoccupied and unclaimed and was free to be mined of its resources.”

Priscilla clicked, more to herself that as words Mick guess and thought for a long moment. “I will try,” she finally said. “To use words in your language.” It took her a moment longer and then she bobbed her head and started all over again.

“The planet . . . the name we have does not move into your language. . . it is protected by us. When we took this part of the galaxy, we promised that no harm would come to it. It is nesting grounds of another . . . . species we know. You cannot harm or else young would die.”

Bee nodded as if ey understood, but Mick was lost as all balls.

“Of course,” Bee said. “I apologize for the intrusion. Would you mind waiting while we contacted those over us to ask for instructions? We did not know the planet was being used when we came here.”

Priscilla immediately shook her head, raising up her top two arms and drawing the other two in tight to her chest. “Oh no,” she said. “You do not understand. The . . . species is not friendly. They can get angry. They spit hot. We stay away. They shed armor that we use.” She tapped a single talon against one of the dark grey plates on her stomach. She then gestured to the ship around them.

Cecilia chittered and clicked as if in agreement, tapping her own dark gray scale armor.

Bee frowned. “Just how unfriendly is the species? Dangerous?”

Priscilla was bobbing her head before Bee had even finished talking, the arms near her chest twitching and fidgeting. “Yes. That is a good word. Dangerous. They eat. They consume. We keep the place open and clear and no one is allowed.”

Cecilia shifted from foot to foot and finally circled around the table to stand next to Priscilla. She pressed their bodies together, chittering softly and closing the top two eyes on her head. Priscilla pressed back against her, the body language relatively protective and reassuring.

Priscilla squinted her eyes and drew herself up to her full height. Before Mick could ask what was wrong or what was going on, Priscilla clicked at Cecilia, something that the translator did not know what to do with. Cecilia clicked back and then darted around the table and out of the room, scanning her claws at the door.

“Where is she going?” Bee asked, nervously picking at the hem of eyis shirt. “Is something wrong?”

Priscilla continued standing at her full height, two arms drawn in and the other two near her face. She clicked for several moments before realizing that the translator wasn’t picking up on her words and that Bee and Mick had no idea what she was actually saying.

“Danger,” she said, clicking sharply. Her eyes were purple slits, the bottom ones almost completely closed at this point. “Danger. Cecilia knows. She can . . . tell. Sense. We have to leave and fast. Ship is strong but not that strong.”

“Danger?!” Mick said. “We’re in fucking _danger_?!”

Priscilla’s top eyes snapped fully open and her bottom ones closed completely. She looked at Mick with what was most likely disdain although perhaps Mick shouldn’t be applying human emotions to an alien. He felt weird thinking that. Like it was an insult.

Bee scowled at him. “Mick, calm down.”

“Fucking?” Priscilla said, the word sounding awkward coming off of her tongue. “I do not understand?”

“It’s nothing,” Bee said between gritted teeth.

“It’s not fucking _nothing_!” Mick said. He wanted to panic. Was this what panic felt like? He really wished he had some of the drugs that Mars could provide. Usually when he felt like this he had drugs. He really needed something to get himself out of his body and fast. “We’re years from home and she just told us that there is a species here that could kill us! How is that nothing?!”

“Fucking,” Priscilla repeated, the word a little less awkward in her mouth.

“Stop it!” Bee snapped. “Stop freaking out! That isn’t helping!”

“What isn’t helping is sitting around when there is a _monster_ coming that is going to kill us!” Mick yelled. He didn’t mean to yell. He was really, honestly panicking now.

“Don’t call her a monster!” Bee yelled back. Ey sounded like ey was panicking too.

“Fucking,” Priscilla repeated again.

The entire ship rumbled and shook, as if something outside of it was grabbing it and rattling it in its frame. Mick swallowed sharply because that’s probably exactly what it was. Something huge out there ready to rip them apart the moment that it go bored enough to rip the ship open and eat them.

Mick didn’t want to be eaten.

“I’m gonna die,” he said. “I leave Mars for the first time in decades and I’m going to fucking _die_.”

“Fucking,” Priscilla said, and all her eyes snapped wide open as the ship shuddered again and creaked in a way that it hadn’t done before. “Oh no,” she said.

Mick felt his knees go weak.

“Oh, fucking shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure the only canonical aliens in the Junoverse are the Ancient Martians so like, wasted potential imo


	5. Mick passes out

Priscilla had abandoned the translator back in the room with the table and Mick was having a hard time following her. She spoke with all four hands in an attempt to communicate with him, but everything when over his head. 

It probably didn’t help that he had emptied his flask in an effort to cope with what was happening to him. It wasn't quite often that you got stranded in space and were going to get eaten by a gigantic space creature. Mick wanted more than alcohol to help him cope with this situation. 

Priscilla made a wild gesture with top two hands, all four of her purple eyes opened completely wide. She was clicking way too fast anyway, so even if she had a translator, Mick probably wouldn’t understand her either way. Everything was getting lost in the chaos and Mick very much wanted to get lost too. 

Get lost in a good way. Not get lost in a bad way. Like not getting lost in the gullet of whatever monster that was roaring outside of the ship right now.

“Hey,” he said to Priscilla, not sure if his words would carry across the language barrier. He waved to get her attention. “I need a drink.” He raised both his arms and flexed, not sure if the miming game would translate across languages. “A strong drink. Get it? Strong. Do. You. Have. Alcohol.” 

Priscilla cocked her head as she watched him, looking at him flex a couple times and watching him mime drinking something for several long moments. She chittered softly to herself for the same amount of long moments. They had stopped moving at this point too, just standing in the hallway, and Mick was awkwardly realizing that he had taken the urgency out of the situation by asking such a ridiculous question. And the ship was literally still trembling and shuddering and Priscilla was trying to figure out what he meant. 

“You know what?” Mick said, dropping his arms back to his sides. “Forget it. I don’t need—” 

Priscilla wordlessly reached to the side and tapped a claw against some sort of panel on the wall. It opened to reveal a small storage space inside containing several glass bottles filled with colorful liquid. Priscilla grabbed one filled with lavender colored contents and pulled it out, offering it to Mick. She made a gesture like drinking, indicating that he should do just that. 

Mick took it from her hesitantly. 

He had no idea if this was alcoholic in the way that he wanted it to be. And he didn’t even know if the aliens had beverages even _like_ alcohol. Mick didn’t know what would happen if he drank from the strange bottle but fuck it, what did he have to lose? 

He twisted off the cap and tipped it into his mouth, nearly coughing it up immediately as it burned its way down his throat. It settled hot and violent in his chest and stomach, almost immediately making him feel woozy and off his feet. Mick caught himself on the wall before he could lose his legs and drop the bottle. He didn’t want to lose the wonderful drink now that he knew just how strong it was.

Priscilla cocked her head, clicking at him. 

“Good,” Mick said, giving her a lazy thumbs up and half a smile. It was all he could manage at the moment. “It’s good. Thanks.” He took another drink. It was just as good the second time around. 

Priscilla clicked again and then continued hurrying down the hall, stepping lightly and moving quickly. Mick took that as an order to follow her and did. 

The ship didn’t change much as they moved. The hallways remained silver and undecorated. Every now and then, there would be a door that Priscilla would scan her claws at to get it to open. She obviously knew where she was going and Mick didn’t have to do much other than follow her. He took careful sips from the bottle, loving the way it heated his chest and made his heart thump. It was much better than any alcohol he had ever purchased in Old Town. 

The thought of his home made his stomach flip. He wondered if he would ever get back there. He wondered how long that would take.

Mick took a larger sip of the drink. 

Priscilla finally scanned open a door that wasn’t another hallway and ushered Mick into a small circular room. With a flick of a talon, she closed the door behind them and gestured for Mick to take a seat at one of the platforms on the opposite side of the room. It was obvious that the place had been built with creatures like Priscilla in mind. The seat of the chair was wide and the indents for the legs were spaced so wide apart that Mick actually felt his face go hot when he finally settled into place. 

He took another drink from the flask to cope with it.

Priscilla clicked at him and pointed to his shoulder where Mick found a strap very similar to a human seatbelt. It didn’t sit across his chest in the most comfortable way, but it was better than nothing, and if there were some sort of gigantic space dragon out there, he definitely wanted to be strapped down for the ride. 

Priscilla took a seat behind the huge board of controls, fitting in the seat much better. 

With all four of her hands, she was able to do ten different things at once, pulling on levers, hitting buttons, and dealing with scanners and grids that Mick didn’t understand the purpose of. Priscilla’s eyes were all wide open, each tracking something different. She was clicking too, but it was more to herself than to Mick.

He sat quietly and nursed his bottle. 

With one hand, Priscilla opened a small compartment and pulled out a small device. Still messing with all the levers and buttons, she hung the device from one of her horns, pressing it firmly into place and then shaking her head as it presumably turned on or began working. She clicked a couple times and then nodded to herself. 

“You need to stay,” she said. “Stay in that seat.”

So the device had been a translator. 

“There are a lot of big creatures around, much bigger than tiny you. Stay in the seat. I will save.” 

Mick was more than happy to just stay where he was and out of the way, but Priscilla yanked on twin levers and the whole room moved. Stupidly, Mick realized it probably wasn’t a room but he didn’t really get a chance to worry about that. As the whole vessel moved, he slid down in his seat. 

It hadn’t been made with a body like his in mind, and as he moved, the strap didn’t keep him in place and he slid down, almost falling out the seat. Mick clung to the edges which was difficult if he wanted to keep his grip on the bottle as well. He yelped as the strap dug into the space between his legs, crushing everything that was important. 

He squeaked, but refused to let go of his bottle. 

The whole ship, because it wasn’t a room anymore, rose up and gained speed, making all the straps on Mick’s seat go tighter and tighter until he was sure that nothing would be left by the time he made it back to Mars. 

If he made it back to Mars. 

He wasn’t sure which thought was more terrifying. 

He didn’t dare ask Priscilla to slow down though. He wasn’t sure what would happen or what would catch them if they did slow down. He kept his mouth shut, only opening it to shakily bring the bottle to his mouth and take a sip, spilling a good amount on himself in the process. 

He welcomed the burning down his throat, focusing on it as a distraction from what was currently happening. 

“Grab to something!” Priscilla yelled. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at a screen that Mick didn’t see or understand. “Ride to be rough!” 

The ship rocked and jumped roughly. From outside, there was a glass-shattering roar of anger as the beast that Priscilla warned them about discovered what Mick and Bee had done. Whatever bases they had set up obviously made the thing very angry and desperate for revenge. Mick would have peed his pants if everything hadn’t been so crushed. 

“Escape,” Priscilla mumbled. “Escape from—” Her words dissolved into clicks and chatters that the translator couldn’t work with. 

Mick guessed she said either the name of the creature or the name of the planet. He didn’t really care about either if he were being honest. His stomach was climbing its way up his throat and he was about to lose all of his precious drink if he didn’t do something. 

“I’m going to throw up!” he declared, hopefully loud enough for Priscilla to hear him. 

She cocked her head back at him, not taking her eyes off the screen but obviously trying to listen to him. “Throw . . . up?” she repeated. 

“My food!” Mick yelled, desperate to explain what was going to happen before it actually did happen. “It’s gonna . . . come back up.” 

“Our stomachs keep everything down,” she said, choosing words that she thought the translator could handle. “We cannot . . . _lose_ anything.” 

Mick had to let go of the edge of his chair and clamp it over his mouth. Without the support, the straps dug in even tighter, but it was worth it to not lose his drink. He wanted to tell Priscilla how lucky she was that she was physically incapable of vomiting but he didn’t risk opening his mouth for anything. He would have to tell her later. 

“Just . . . easy on the speed,” he managed to get out. 

“Cannot. We need to get away.” 

The ship accelerated again, slamming Mick back in his seat. The momentum, at least, forced the vomit back down his throat and into his stomach. He was safe, for the moment. With no barf bag and with Priscilla still at the wheel, he wasn’t sure how long he would stay that way. He just clutched tight to his seat and the bottle and distracted himself by thinking of all the ways he could change this story to make himself look cooler. 

It wouldn’t be easy, but Mick did it with most of his stories anyway. 

He closed his eyes and did his best to imagine himself in a place with less chaos and less danger and more booze. It must’ve been either the strange drink or the literal g-force, but eventually Mick felt his eyes roll back in his head and he lost consciousness.


	6. Mick pees his pants a little

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't think i mentioned that this story is pre-canon, specifically leading up to the episode Juno Steel and the Day that Wouldn't Die (Part 1) when we first meet Mick, just saying

And Mick woke up to Priscilla gently nudging his shoulder, clicking in a very concerned manner. The translator wasn’t picking up on any actual words so she wasn’t really saying anything intelligible. But all four eyes were fixated on him in a concerned sort of way. 

“I’m fine,” Mick managed to say. 

He rolled over in his seat and vomited. 

He almost regretted it, because the drink really had been delicious and had made him feel so nice. But his organs felt like they had all been completely rearranged, and emptying his stomach actually felt good. For like the first time ever in Mick’s life. 

Priscilla looked absolutely disgusted with him. 

“Humans,” she said and clicked. She wrinkled her nose and squinted all of her eyes “You . . . lose resources. _Food_. Your body . . . is not made to survive.” 

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Mick said with a groan. He fumbled to unbuckle himself and after a couple tries, he did manage it. He pushed himself up and out of the chair where he promptly fell into Priscilla’s arms. "I don't think humans were meant to be in space." 

"Well," Priscilla said, holding him easily and dragging him over to one of the walls of the ship. She tapped on some unseen panel with a claw and a window opened up. "We are . . . _deep_ in space."

She held Mick up under his arms to show him the sprawling wasteland that their ship was currently parked on. 

And Mick almost lost his stomach again. 

The planet—or star or asteroid or space debris or planetary ring or wherever they were—was rocky and barren. Mick could only see about a couple miles out as the sharp curve of whatever they were on made the horizon drop out of sight. But what he could see consisted mostly of a grayish rock that rose in half-hearted formations before toppling under its own weight. He couldn't judge what the atmosphere was like but considering that there were no plants and no _visible_ animals, Mick was going to guess toxic. Priscilla didn't look as shaken as he felt, but maybe her lungs worked differently than his. 

Maybe she didn't even _have_ lungs. 

Who the fuck knew at this point? 

“We must go out,” Priscilla said, setting Mick down on the floor and turning to type at a keyboard that Mick wouldn’t even begin to comprehend. With all four hands working, she could move at a speed Mick didn’t even bother trying to track. “I know this place,” Priscilla went on, clicking to herself occasionally in words that the translator didn’t bother defining. “There is resources not far. We can get them and repair the ship and get out of here. I want to get back to—” She cut off into rapid clicking as the translator failed. She blinked all of her eyes in irritation. “Cecilia. The other of me.” 

“Oh,” Mick said, and with the way that Priscilla was flicking her tail like a cat, he wondered if the aliens had relations beyond just shipmates. “Uh, I’m sure we’ll get back to her. Eventually.” 

Priscilla just snapped her tail. “We _will_.”

Her finality sent a shiver down Mick’s spine.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Of course. That’s what I meant.” 

“We will go now,” Priscilla said and hit a final button on the keyboard. 

With a crunch and wire of unseen mechanisms, the side of the pod cracked and then opened up to the outside world. Mick would have thought it was cool and fascinating, until the atmosphere flooded in and Mick found himself at a loss for breath. 

Literally. 

He had no oxygen and no substitute. He didn’t even have a chance to warn Priscilla or yell for help. His lungs were suddenly empty and his chest was straining. It felt like a Martian drug lord had grabbed him around the head and was squeezing until his eyes popped out of his head. He wasn’t even aware that he had collapsed until Priscilla was shaking him with all four of her hands. 

“Human. Human. Human?” she was saying. 

It took a while before the ship recycled enough oxygen to return the conditions to something that Mick could actually breathe. And he gasped in appreciation as he recovered. 

“Oh, that’s not good,” he muttered. “That’s definitely not good.” 

“What happened?” Priscilla asked, still crouched over him. 

With her size, it was more looming and more than a bit intimidating. All four of her eyes were wide, and as Mick continued to stare up at her, he realized that they were slightly glowing purple. It was hypnotizing and . . . beautiful. 

“You’re beautiful,” he said, because it seemed like the best thing to say at the time. 

Priscilla recoiled but didn’t drop him thankfully. “Is something wrong? Why are you commenting on my looks?” 

Mick shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems relevant.” 

Priscilla rolled two of her eyes. "It is never relevant." 

She didn’t drop Mick but she did put him down and turned to the keyboard again. Apparently that half of the conversation of the conversation was over as she returned to her work. Mick didn’t feel like he was absolutely going to pass out again but still, he didn’t like the lack of attention. 

“Hey, what are you doing?” he asked. 

“I have to leave you here,” Priscilla said. “I guess you cannot breathe the . . . air here. So stay.” 

“Is that safe?” Mick said. “I mean, like you leaving. I don’t want to be alone. How do you know that there aren’t like . . . monsters out there.” 

Priscilla snapped her head around, two of her eyes shut and the other two open wide. Mick thought he had been imagining it before but fuck, yeah, they _were_ glowing. She actually snarled, baring fat canines that looked more for crushing than tearing, and with two of her hands she grabbed him. One tangled itself in a fistful of his shirt and the other grabbed him across the mouth, shutting him up in an instant. 

“ _I_ am monster,” Priscilla snarled. “You will stay. You will not get hurt. _I am monster_.” 

“Mhm,” Mick said, doing his best to nod in agreement. “Mm-hm. Mm-hm!” 

“Good,” Priscilla said. She turned and set him down even further away from the keyboard. 

She let him go, and Mick took another step back, just wanting to be respectful. She hadn’t hurt him. Far from it. Though she had claws and such, they hadn’t even scratched him. Not even torn his clothing. Mick was, for the most part, completely untouched. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I’ll stay here. No problem. Best of luck to you as you venture out into this unknown world. No danger whatsoever.” 

Priscilla opened all her eyes but kept them narrowed. She pressed a couple more buttons, ignoring Mick for the most part. Satisfied with whatever she had done, she crouched down and pressed a claw against the floor.

It opened, very much like the wall, as a door to the outside. The ship must have been propped up on some sort of supports or landing pads, because Priscilla was able to drop down onto the rock below, tucking her tail in order to fit. She glared at Mick one last time. Maybe calling it a glare was rude. She narrowed all of her eyes and bared her teeth. 

“Stay,” she said.

“Yeah,” Mick said with a nod, still not sure why he wasn’t choking to death this time. He didn’t have time to question it because Priscilla had ducked out of the ship and it had closed behind her. 

The ship was deadly quiet without the alien. Mick immediately didn’t like it, but it wasn’t like he could leave or anything. Not without dying on the way out. He didn't dare touch the keyboard since he had no idea how anything worked, but he didn't have much else to occupy himself with until he spotted the gun metal grey flask that had rolled to the opposite side of the ship, laying innocently on the floor. Mick dove for it and snatched it up. 

Now this was an activity that he loved to do to pass the time. 

He unscrewed the top off the bottle and tipped it back, gulping down two mouthfuls before the burn caught up with him. He took a moment to cough and hack and pound his chest before he recovered enough for another round. It only took several more gulps before it started to kick in. The fact that alien alcohol worked so well and fast was probably the best thing in Mick’s life at the moment. 

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there because the room started to spin and the colors started to blur and it was hard to keep track of time like that. He found his way back to his chair and collapsed in it, tipping his head back to he could stare at the ceiling. 

He didn’t even notice that Priscilla had returned until three different hands were shaking him and Mick grunted, snapping upright. 

“I’m here!” he mumbled. “I’m here, I promise.” 

“I do not care,” Priscilla said. “I need to take you out of the ship.”

“Without dy- _ing_??” Mick said, trying to enunciate but slurring his words anyway. “Uhhhh, I can’ breathe out there.” He laughed because she had forgotten. “Dummy.” 

"I have knowledge," Priscilla said blandly, sniffing him and then squinting at the bottle in his hand. "Are you sure that drink is what you want?" 

Mick nodded and clutched it protectively to his chest. "Yes!" he said. "It's what I want!" 

"Okay," Priscilla said. She didn't object and she didn't try to take it away from him. 

Instead, she returned to her old place by the controls. She tapped a bit, twitching her tail very much like a cat. Mick wondered dimly if it meant the same thing or just meant that Priscilla was just concentrating. He took another drink instead of thinking about it more than a couple seconds. 

"You must hold your breath," Priscilla said, turning away from the buttons. She gestured to her own chest. "Can your species do that?" 

Mick nodded. "Can’t you?" 

Priscilla just grabbed him and hoisted him up. She could easily carry him with two arms, and she continued working with the other two. 

"I don't need to breathe for a very long time," was all she said. 

Mick opened his mouth to say something, but Priscilla clamped a claw over it before any noise could come out. She was squeezing just enough to make Mick squeak in alarm but not enough to actually crush his skull. For some reason, Mick was pretty sure she could do that easily. 

"I will go fast," she said, ignoring the way Mick was shoving at her arm in an effort to breathe again. 

Mick heard the door slide open and suddenly they were _moving_. 

And Priscilla could move. 

Mick had to close his eyes against the wind and he stopped struggling as he certainly didn't want to get dropped now. It was freezing outside of the ship too, the temperature biting his skin and threatening to kill his fingers and toes in an instant. Mick curled in on himself the best he could to conserve his body heat since Priscilla didn't seem to be giving off any. 

It only took a couple more seconds though, and suddenly Priscilla was bursting through another doorway. And after another moment she was releasing his mouth and letting him breathe. 

Mick gasped to fill his lungs, and his body instinctively flailed as it got what it needed most to live. 

Priscilla, thankfully, managed to hold onto him until he had calmed down and got his breath back. 

“Jesus Christ!” he managed to get out between his hacking coughs. 

Priscilla moved away from him, opening a panel on the wall of whatever building they were in and messing around with the buttons and levers. “I do not know who that is,” she said. 

Mick thought about it while he caught his breath. "You know what? Neither do I." 

"I changed this atmosphere to better suit your needs," Priscilla said, ploughing through the conversation like Mick hadn't spoken at all. "I do not want you to die. I will contact a main ship to send . . . Support. We will wait until that arrives." 

"How long do you think that will take?" 

Priscilla clicked rapidly and then stopped when she realized that the translator wasn't picking up on any words. 

"Time," she said slowly and then clicked. She closed her bottom eyes. "I do not know how you humans measure time." 

"Great," Mick said. He patted himself down and located the bottle of alcohol. He finished what was left in three quick, burning gulps and had a coughing fit. He showed the empty bottle to Priscilla. "Is there any chance I can get more of this?" 

"Our Far Bases don't store those drinks," she said. "It is not okay for us to use emergency facilities and require a drink like that." 

Mick just shrugged. "For the fun of it?" 

"We have this," Priscilla said, pulling open a compartment and grabbing a bag from inside. 

It looked like it was made of tinfoil that had been crumpled over and over again until it was all wrinkles. It didn't make a sound as it moved in Priscilla's hands though, but it took three of her arms to carry it. She used her last to open the top and rummage around inside. It took her a moment, but she pulled out what looked like a plastic container of some sort of pink solid. 

She passed it over to Mick. 

"What is it?" he asked, turning it over in his hands. 

It wasn't plastic. He realized that as soon as he touched it. It was soft and bendable but had no seams. It was as if the pink substance had been grown inside the clear, squishy sphere, because Mick had no other idea how the material worked. Was it even food? 

"Teeth," Priscilla said, baring her own fangs. "Tear open and chew. It is a plant from my home world." She broke off into clicks and closed two of her eyes in frustration. "My home. We grow it and make it into that. Chew and it makes you feel good. You breathe less, eat less, move less. Saves resources." 

"Oh fuck, that sounds good!" Mick said. At least it sounded like some of the drugs that Mars had. Maybe it was just as good.

He popped part of the material between his teeth and bit down, trying to tear through it like Priscilla had described. He stretched it, the material sticking to his teeth a bit, but it didn't tear. 

"Fuck," he said, spitting it out. He handed it back to Priscilla. "Can you?" 

Priscilla tore into it like a starved man, ripping it easily and unwrapping the pink substance. She ate the material too, swallowing it as she handed the prize back to Mick. 

He grabbed it eagerly and took a huge bite. 

It tasted surprisingly like bubblegum. And it chewed like bubblegum. And it stuck to his teeth like bubblegum. 

"Is this bubblegum?" he said, turning to ask Priscilla. "Woah, did you always have two heads?" 

Priscilla cocked one head to the left and the other to the right. Two of her hands were working another block of the pink stuff and the other two looked like they were performing some sort of interpretive dance. At some point, her usual four eyes had doubled, on _both_ heads. The head in the right took a bite of the pink material for herself. The other head was laughing. 

"You have two heads," Mick said, unable to hold back his laughter. 

“You just look human,” she said. "No extra limbs." 

"Duuuuude," Mick said, looking down at his hand just in time to watch his skin melt completely off his bones and then reform a second later. “This is fucking _sick_.” 

Priscilla clicked at him, and for some reason the idea that the translator wasn’t picking up on any of her words was beyond funny to Mick. He started giggling and then _that_ was funny and he started laughing even harder. He had to curl over on his stomach as he started laughing harder than ever. 

Priscilla was clicking and he was laughing, and Mick lost track of time. 

And maybe that was the whole point of the bubblegum.


	7. Mick makes horny decisions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a small warning (?? i guess??), for part of this chapter, Bee uses it/its pronouns. This is completely Bee's decision and everyone is respectful about it, it is not used in any negative manner, but just in case, i thought i'd let ya'll know

Mick continued to chew idly on the bubblegum. He slumped against the wall and anytime that Priscilla started too look like her normal self, he took another bite and continued chewing. So far, his high score had been four heads at once. 

And holy fuck this stuff was amazing. It tasted good and it felt good and it was literally better than anything Mick had gotten his hands on back at Mars. Plus, it _tasted_ _good_ , which was a lot more than most Martian drugs could claim.

Mick was trying to beat his best, aiming for five heads, when the keyboard on the wall started beeping. It wasn’t loud and didn’t give him a headache, but it was definitely weird to see the sound of the light as well as hear it. The bright red of the alarm on the keyboard was only half of it. Jagged strips of yellow arched through the air on every off-beat when the alarm sounded.

He pulled himself upright, all his limbs feeling heavier than normal. “Uhhhhh, Priss! Priscilla! The thing is doing the thing!” 

“You should not eat so much of that,” Priscilla said as she climbed passed him to take care of the alarm. 

Mick clutched the brick of pink close to his chest, his drugged out brain terrified for a moment that it would be taken away. Priscilla just gave him a look that was probably disgust and returned to the typing. Her tail twitched, and Mick couldn’t figure out if that was out of irritation or another emotion. He took another bite of the bubble gum. 

“Stop that,” Priscilla said, and one of her arms twisted back to pluck the brick out of Mick’s hands. He was too wacked out to try to take it back. 

“Heeyyy!” he said. He scrambled to his feet, swaying in time with the room, and tried to grab it back. "Give it back. Just one more bite!" 

"My resources," Priscilla said, easily keeping it out of his reach. 

Mick was bored as soon as he realized he wouldn't be able to get it back and collapsed back on the ground. He still felt floaty and nice and knew he would continue feeling like that for a while. But he still didn't like having his drugs taken away from him. 

He was quickly distracted when the floor underneath him shuddered and the walls began to creak, and he suddenly remembered the huge space monster back at the old ship, the ship from Mars. The monster that had destroyed the other ship and had almost eaten them alive. The monster that had been huge and . . . . _monstrous_. 

Mick suddenly wished he had the bubblegum back. If he was gonna get eaten, he at least wanted to be eaten by a monster with three heads and ten eyes. Like, _that_ would be badass. 

Who was he kidding? For all Mick knew, the monster outside actually did have three heads and ten eyes, eating the bubblegum would make everything worse. Or better. What did the bubblegum do again? 

“Hold still,” Priscilla said, finally stepping away from the controls and looking up at the ceiling as the small room began shaking even more violently. 

Mick was pretty sure he wouldn’t be moving anytime soon until the monster broke through the wall and swallowed him whole. He was happy to stay where he was, curled into a ball on the ground, eyes squeezed shut. Mick would never call himself a religious man, so he sent a quick prayer to Jay and Sasha instead, begging his old friends to show up and help him somehow. 

He should have known that wouldn’t work. 

It never did. 

Instead, something from the outside of the ship latched onto it, and the walls and ceiling peeled back. Instead of the toxic atmosphere of the planet rushing in like before, Mick was surprised to look up and see that it was just another section of ship that had connected to their own. A cavernous tunnel was now open above them, and Priscilla was staring up at it excitedly. 

At least, Mick assumed it was excitement. All her eyes were wide open and her tail was practically vibrating. 

“Come,” she said. She grabbed his arm without asking and before Mick could say anything, she had launched herself up. 

“Fuck!” Mick yelled without meaning to. His arm was almost pulled out of socket it felt like. The muscle all strained and stretched in ways they had never been before. Mick would have passed out from the pain, but Priscilla landed, and the stress was gone. 

She dropped him on the floor, the pit behind them closing. Mick lost his balance completely, cradling his arm close to his chest and scrubbing at the tears that burned down his cheeks as he sat on the floor. 

“Please,” he said. The bubblegum had numbed the pain a bit but not enough for him not to be bothered. It still hurt like shit. “Please don’t do that ever again.” 

Priscilla didn’t seem to be paying attention. “Come. _Quick_.” 

She was darting off into the dark halls around them, and Mick didn’t have much of an option other than to scramble to his feet and hobble after her, cradling his arm close to his chest. He wanted to yell at her to slow down and to wait for him. All he could do was follow the tip of her tail as it disappeared around corners and hope he didn’t get lost. 

For a moment, when he missed a turn and didn’t stare when she had gotten to, he thought he was done for, but then a series of frantic clicks and squeaks made him backtrack to a twist he had missed. There, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Priscilla. 

The now familiar space alien was twisted with the less familiar form of Cecilia. The two were coiled together, arms and legs and tails and necks all twisted into one mass that made it hard to tell who was who. They were clicking frantically, the translators not even bothering to try. It was so obviously a private moment that Mick averted his gaze out of respect and shuffled his feet awkwardly so he wasn’t intruding. 

He didn’t know how long he was going to have to stand there, but he certainly didn’t want to interrupt. He was so busy not looking, that when someone wrapped their own arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug, he fought back, thrashing against the grip. 

“Hey, _hey_!” a welcomed, _human_ voice said, a human voice that didn’t come from a translator. “I don’t see you for a week and you decide you hate me?” 

“Bee?” Mick said, because that was the only human in space that he knew about. 

“Who else would it be?” 

The hold on him loosened and Mick turned to see the one and only Bee. The fin was a pitch black, and that was immediately concerning. Bee must’ve seen his look of concern because they just laughed. 

“I’m fine! I’m fine, I promise. Uh, it, its,” Bee said. 

“Okay,” Mick said, trying to store that information somewhere in his mind. He wasn’t sure if would be able to keep all these colors straight. “Where have you been?” 

“With Cecilia,” Bee said. “After we got separated, Cecilia met up with some others of their kind. Did you know they all go by she? It’s so interesting! They gave Cecilia a whole different ship and new equipment. They seemed really concerned that Priscilla was missing. And then we came and found you!” 

“I thought I was gonna die,” Mick admitted. “But then Priscilla had drugs, so it was okay I guess.” 

Bee wrinkled its nose. “Drugs? Are you serious?” 

Mick nodded. “They tasted like bubblegum.” 

Bee just shook its head and glanced over at where Priscilla and Cecilia had yet to pull apart. It stepped back from Mick to give him a bit more space, and together, they watched the two aliens together. It wasn’t as awkward when they were doing it together. 

“How long do you think they are going to stay like that?” Mick asked. 

Bee just shrugged. “I don’t know. Once Cecilia got a translator, she wouldn’t stop talking about them together. It was actually kind of sweet.” 

“Priscilla is mine,” Cecilia said. 

At least, Mick was pretty sure it was Cecilia. The translator had been set to a sort of masculine voice, not that deep, but still a lot different than what Priscilla was using. It was a little jarring, if Mick was being honest with himself. But he took it in stride. Cecilia didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all, and it certainly didn’t stop her from speaking.

“She is my everything, from planet to planet, outside every other,” Cecilia went on, uncoiling herself from Priscilla so they could look each other in the eye. “No matter what distance is put between us, I will always return. Ship to ship, time to time, I will always come back. Just as the stars burn and black holes eat light, I will always fight to see you and return to your side. You are my life and everything that surrounds it.” 

Priscilla had narrowed all her eyes in contentment, flicking her tongue in and out. “Love,” she said. “You.” 

Bee rolled its eyes. “It’s been like this the entire time.” It held up its arm to show off the metallic grey band that was fastened around its wrist. “Tiny internet. It was given to everyone going on the expedition. Cecilia downloaded everything on it and has been speaking like that ever since.” 

“Internet?” Mick said. “Is that something from Mars?” 

Bee gave him a look. “It’s from _Earth_.” 

“Woah,” Mick said. “Then it’s old.” 

“Something like that,” Bee said. “Come on. Cecilia said that as soon as we got you guys back, we could head back to Mars.” It turned and gestured down the hallway. Apparently it knew its way around the ship already.

“Not back to the colony?” Mick said. "What about your job or whatever?" 

"The job has been forfeited," Bee said. "The planet is compromised by the creatures we encountered who separated us in the first place. If the Highers need a colony, they need to put it someplace else." It said it with such finality, but Mick wasn't about to argue anyway. 

He was too busy breathing a sigh of relief at the idea of going back home. If only he could have that bubblegum shit to celebrate. 

“Hell yeah!” he said. He was grabbing Bee in a hug before he could stop himself. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day!” He pushed away from Bee. “Is there day in space?” 

Bee wrinkled its nose. “What do you think happens to time when you travel? Does it just stop working?” 

Mick shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t travel much.” 

“Come,” Cecilia said, finally pulling away from Priscilla though their tails remained intertwined. “I will fly us from this planet.” She looked at Mick and Bee. “We will return to yours. No one should be away from home for so long.” 

“Where do you live?” Mick said. Maybe that was rude. “I mean, which planet? Or whatever. What’s home for you?” 

Cecilia laughed. The translator wasn’t sure what to make of the noise but Cecilia gave a sort of head shake, closing her eyes and clicking in a different sort of frequency. She pulled Priscilla down the hallway, leading the way presumably to some sort of cockpit. 

“Priscilla is home,” she said. “I am nowhere without her. No ship, no planet, and no room is comfortable if I am not by her side. We found each other by chance, but I will not let something as small as fate take us apart.” 

Priscilla, who had been rather gruff and stern this whole time, was following in Cecilia’s footsteps and staring up at her like she lit up the entire universe. 

“If this small planet that Bee talks of is your home, then we shall return you as promptly as we can,” Cecilia continued. She scanned open a door with a claw and walked in, taking a seat at the head chair that was in front of the huge spread of buttons, levers, and screens. 

Priscilla took the seat directly behind her. Their tails were still linked, though. Priscilla managed to pull herself together a bit more, taking over her sections of the controls. 

Mick and Bee took the last two seats that were available, the ones farthest from the controls since it was pretty obvious that they wouldn’t be helping at this point. They had to jump up a bit to get on and Mick was only slightly concerned about the lack of seatbelts. But he was more excited about actually getting back to Mars where he was supposed to be.

“What about you?” he asked Bee, clutching two of the available four armrests as the ship rumbled and shook and began to move. 

Bee raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” 

Mick gestured to Priscilla and Cecilia. “Do you have a . . . . home to go back to?” 

“Do you?” 

“Not like _that_ ,” Mick said, nodding at Priscilla and Cecilia. “I mean, I have a house to go back to. Well, an apartment. It’s a bit shabby, really only one room, but it’s got my bed and a fridge. The fridge is empty, unless someone filled it while I’m gone. But that’s home.” When he said it out loud, Mick realized how bad it sounded. He sighed. “That’s what I’m going back to.” 

“I don’t have a home either,” Bee said. “In both senses. I mean, I’ve got an apartment, same as you, but the whole deal with me leaving was that the Highers were going to sell it to some building company that was going to knock it down and replace it with something else.” 

Mick stared down at his lap. “I keep forgetting we slept to get here. Do you think your home is already gone?” 

Bee rolled its eyes. “Thanks for reminding me,” it said. “That’s really what I want to think about right now.” 

Now Mick felt bad. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I just. . . I don’t know. Usually I don’t plan my life three years in the future. Most of the time, I’m like . . . barely planning what I have for dinner. And now it’s been three years and I really don’t know what I want to do.” 

Bee wrinkled its nose. “What were you doing before all of this?” 

Mick shrugged. “The night before we met, I just wanted to get high and drunk. I just wanted to change my life, and usually my drunk self handles my life better than sober me.” 

“What were you expecting to do?” Bee asked. “I mean, that doesn’t sound like it would work.” 

“It usually does,” Mick said. “Or it at least puts me out for long enough so the problem either passes or deals with itself. Why? You don’t do that?” 

Bee shook its head. “Honestly, I don’t think that’s healthy.” 

“Yeah, but neither is selling your home and moving three years across the galaxy,” Mick said. “I think we both made a couple of horny decisions.” 

The ship rumbled and swerved, but there were no windows to track its movement. Priscilla and Cecilia were too absorbed in the controls to care about what the humans behind them were doing. Mick would guess that as soon as the ride became level and smooth, they would leave the controls and continue with their goo-goo eyes. 

“I don’t think I like the phrase ‘horny decisions,’” Bee said. The fin shifted from completely black, rippling with shades of light blue that darkened and solidified into a richer purple. It was mesmerizing to watch, and Mick almost forgot about the conversation they were having. 

"I mean, that's usually how I describe most of my decisions," Mick said, finally remembering that it was his turn to speak. "As someone who's never horny, you know?" 

Bee blinked at him in surprise and then smiled. "Cool," he said and then reached inside his jacket and pulling out a square of the pink bubblegum. He ripped it in half and offered one to Mick. "To horny decisions." 

"Oh, thank God," Mick said, snatching the cube and popping it into his mouth. He was almost drooling over his lap at this point. "To horny decisions." 

Bee laughed at him, a giggle really, as he covered his mouth with his hand and ate his own bubblegum in a much neater manner. 

Priscilla and Cecilia’s tails curled a bit tighter around each other.


	8. Mick gets back to drugs

“Wait a second,” Mick said, picking through the assortment of packages that Priscilla had presented as ‘food’ to them. “Didn’t it take us like . . . three years to travel to the planet we were at before? And the only reason it felt like two seconds was because we were asleep the whole time?” 

“I mean, when you put it that way,” Bee said, picking over the same packages that he discarded. “We are pretty far away from Mars. But we really don’t know how fast Cecilia’s ship is traveling.” 

Once the ship had stabilized after the take off, Bee had tried to talk to Cecelia about how the ship worked and how long the trip would take. Cecelia had tried to explain, but the translator had refused to pick up on any of the words that were being said. Anything that had to do with speed or ship parts or anything technical had been reduced to clicks and squeaks in Cecelia’s language. It was frustrating, and after several minutes, both Bee and Cecelia had given up. 

Now, Cecelia and Priscilla had locked themselves in a room that they refused to say what it was used for. That left Mick and Bee to search the rooms that were unlocked for food. Cecelia and Priscilla seemed to have forgotten that they needed more food than they did. 

As it was, Mick and Bee wouldn’t read the alien handwriting and didn’t know what was edible and what wasn’t. That was difficult. 

Bee’s fin was a brand new color too—a sort of speckled pink with large areas of black—and Mick had learned that while Bee could go by many pronouns, Bee could also go by no pronouns. Sometimes, Bee was Bee. Nothing else and nothing more. 

That was cool. Mick had never thought about stuff like that. In fact, Bee made him think about a lot of things he didn’t think about normally.

Like the fact that they were three years from home. Mick hadn’t thought about that before. Bee had the tendency to make him think about stuff like that. 

"Maybe it'll take us three years," Bee said. "I don't really know. Are you in a hurry to get back?" Bee picked up one package, sniffed it, and then used teeth to tear it open. 

A crumply brownish material fell out, not as thin as sand or dirt but definitely not a solid chunk. Bee picked up some of the bigger pieces, letting it roll across the palm and fingers. With a look of obvious nervousness, Bee brought a piece to the mouth and ate it. 

Mick watched, wide-eyed, as Bee chewed slowly and finally swallowed. He waited for vomit or seizures or something worse, but Bee just continued chewing and then grabbed another piece to eat. 

"Is it good?" Mick asked. He was really getting hungry but he still had no idea what they would be eating, not without Priscilla or Cecilia to tell them what it was. 

Bee shrugged. "It kinda tastes like dragon fruit." 

Mick had no idea what that was. But he really wanted to know what dragon tasted like. He grabbed a piece for himself and popped it into his mouth. He chewed quickly already grabbing for another piece. 

It didn't taste like he thought it would. It's subtly sweet, dry, but not bitter. It crumbled in his mouth, sucking up the moisture and turning into a paste that slid down his throat a moment later. Mick was already eating another bite. 

Bee was right. It wasn't really _bad_ —Mick probably wouldn't choose to eat it over and over again—but it was the best thing he had eaten in a while, and that meant it tasted _amazing_. He stuffed another chunk into his mouth, and another, and another. Bee was eating right alongside him. 

"Not bad," Mick mumbled around one particularly big bite. 

Bee grunted. "Could you eat it for three years?"

Mick stuffed a particularly big bite into his mouth and chewed for a moment. He then screwed up his nose and shook his head. “No, it’s good, but I definitely don’t want to eat it for three years. You don’t think Priscilla and them are gonna stay in there for three years, will they?” 

Bee shrugged. "Who knows? They certainly aren't human." 

As if summoned by the words, Cecilia pushed her way through a door at the far end of the hall, four eyes going wide when she saw Mick and Bee. She strode towards them, covering the distance easily. She was taller than Priscilla was, Mick had noticed, though she was skinnier. Priscilla held most of her bulk in her stomach, chest, and arms, while Cecilia was lithe and narrow. Mick used everything he could to tell them apart. 

“Do humans feel the same amount of love for themselves that I feel with every passing moment for my own—" Her translator gave up at the last part, and Cecilia had to correct herself. "For my Priscilla?" 

"Some of us do," Bee said and stood, offering a hand to Cecilia. "I can fix your translator if you want. Tweak the voice." 

"Does it matter what pitch I speak in?" Cecilia asked. She cocked her head at the color of Bee's fin. 

"Nothing, please," Bee said in answer to the unspoken question. "But no, it doesn't really matter. Unless it's a preference for you." 

"Priscilla's voice is beautiful," Cecilia said, picking up the wrapper that they had torn open. She looked it over and then stuck it in her mouth and began chewing. "I like the way that sounds. And mine can sound just like that?” 

"Yeah," Bee said. "It's actually really easy." 

Cecilia thought about it for a moment and finally shook her head. “No, I like it the way it is. I like admiring—” Untranslatable clicks. “—voice and how mine can never compare. I like it the way it is.” 

Bee smiled and nodded. “Alright then. I’ll leave it the way it is. I like it too.” 

Cecilia’s two bottom eyes closed at the praise and while Mick didn’t know how to translate their body language to something human, he was pretty sure that Cecilia was preening under the words. He rolled his own eyes and shuffled through the packages. 

“Hey, C, is any of this stuff okay for humans to eat?” he asked. He grabbed one at random and held it up.   
“Like this?” 

Cecilia took it from him and looked it over. “That is . . . . I do not know how to say it in your language.” She thought for a moment. “Flesh? Meat? But not meat.” 

“Protein?” Bee asked. “Is that what you’re trying to say?” 

Cecilia just blinked all of her eyes. “I do not know,” she said. “I do not know.” She tore open the package with two of her hands and offered chunks of the contents to both Mick and Bee with her two other hands. 

Mick took it, sniffing it first and then putting it in his mouth. He didn’t really have much to lose at this point. 

It tasted much different than the first thing, bitter enough to turn his nose and was nothing like any meat Mick had ever eaten before. Not that he ate that much meat before this. While it didn’t taste very good, it at least didn’t turn his stomach. He took another bite and did his best to keep his face neutral. 

“It tastes good,” Cecilia said. "It does not for you?" 

Mick shook his head and took another bite. "It's no big deal though. If I didn't eat things just because I didn't like the way they tasted, I would have died a long time ago." 

Bee gave him a weird look but he ignored it. 

“Hey, how do you measure time again?” Mick asked instead. 

Cecilia’s translator didn’t even try to begin with the rapid clicks and squeaks. It just gave up and let her ramble for a good ten minutes, and Cecilia didn’t even realize what was going on. She gestured with her arms and squinted her eyes. Mick and Bee just stared at her blankly and waited for her to finally catch onto what was going on. 

“This is your fault,” Bee said, glaring in Mick’s direction. “You should know better than to get her started.” 

Mick just shrugged. “Yeah, well, I didn’t want to talk about meat anymore. Sue me.” He took another bite of the contents of the package and only chewed it a couple times before swallowing just to minimize the taste. 

"You are unbelievable sometimes," Bee said. 

Mick winked. "But only sometimes." 

Cecilia finally managed to realize that nothing she was saying was getting translated and stopped with a half-huff of frustration. Her top eyes closed and she stopped talking altogether for a moment. 

"Sorry," she eventually said. "Apparently measurements are harder to translate across languages. You will have to wait until I find a way to explain that uses words from your way of speaking. I must find Priscilla." 

With that, she turned and swept down the hall, leaving them and their pile of silver packages. Mick watched her go and then took another bite of food. Now that he was a couple bites in, it really wasn’t that bad. The aftertaste still turned his stomach a bit, but Mick could deal with it. 

“If we are stuck on a ship for three more years,” Mick said. “What are you gonna do for that entire time?” 

Bee shrugged and leaned against the wall, sinking all the way down to the floor. Bee grabbed another silver package and looked it over, trying to read the writing and still having no success. “You wanna talk about how much both of our lives suck?” 

Mick shrugged and leaned back against the wall, trying to copy the same move. Halfway down, his shoes lost all their stick on the floor and he slammed down on his ass in a pretty ungracefully matter. He took another bite of his food. 

“Not really,” he said. “But what else is there to talk about?” 

“How about this?” Bee said, pulling a familiar chunk of pink out of a pocket that Mick didn’t know existed. “Look familiar?” 

Mick almost dropped the meat he had been eating and the only reason he didn’t was because Bee would kill him for wasting food. “You got bubblegum?!” he asked. “Where? How? Is that real?” He leaned forward to grab it but Bee held it out of the way.

“Hey, hey!” Bee said, already laughing at him. “Easy! I just told Priscilla that we wanted to save resources and she handed it right over. You know, how you normally get drugs. Why, how do you usually get them?” 

“Uh, not that way,” Mick said, debating if he tackled Bee whether or not he would be able to win that fight. “Come on, gimme, gimme, gimme!!” 

Bee was still laughing at him but at least handed it over. Mick took a huge bite, groaning at the familiar taste. From experience, he knew that it would only take a couple minutes before he started feeling the effects. To his surprise, Bee grabbed the block back from him and took a bite to match. Mick didn’t even think Bee took drugs but he wasn’t about to question it now. 

“Badass!” he said. “This stuff is the greatest. Better than anything I’ve had on Mars. You’re gonna love it.” 

“Who says I’ve never done drugs before?” Bee said and took a second, bigger bite. “You underestimate me sometimes and I’ve got to start proving you wrong.” 

Mick was still staring wide eyed before he finally remembered himself and took a second bite to match Bee’s. His head was already starting to buzz in that familiar way and he knew in a couple minutes, Bee’s head would probably split in two and the fin would most likely go multicolored. He should let Bee know so that if he used the wrong pronouns, he could apologize later. 

“Hey,” he said. “When this stuff messes up my colors and vision, sorry if I say something wrong.” He gestured to the top of his own head. “You know. With that thing.” He was already forgetting words so this was great. 

Bee’s nose wrinkled, and then Bee seemed to realize what he was talking about. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll be too wacked out as well, so don’t worry about it too much.”

“Yeah, yeah, but what should I use?” Mick said. Did he always have three hands or was that a new thing? It was probably a new thing. “What’s something that will be the safest?”

Bee smiled at him, but it stretched a little too far and curled at the edges so it looked more creepy than comforting. Mick took it as the gesture it was and returned it. His mouth felt weird though. Was he getting the movement right? He tried again. And then again. Okay, yeah, the third time definitely felt right. 

Bee shrugged. “Most of the time, I don’t even know. Is that weird? Most people know exactly where they sit with this type of stuff and I’m out here with this.” Bee gestured to the fin. “And the most confusing identity ever.”

Mick shrugged. “I don’t think it matters. Mars is . . . . already weird. You’re _normal_. You know _I’m_ not normal?” He giggled and then giggled again because the sound was hilarious to himself. 

Bee gave him a look that Mick couldn’t interpret because he was too distracted by the way the eyes were now shifting through a series of shades of blue that never knew existed. It was captivating. 

“Why are you not normal?” Bee asked, finally jolting out of his thoughts. 

Bemused. Mick settled on bemused. The look Bee had given him was _bemused_. Mick didn’t even know that he had known that word before so he surprised even himself by using it.

He leaned forward and cupped his hand around his mouth. He liked telling secrets and while what he was about to say wasn’t really a secret, it was hilarious to act like it was. 

“I don’t like to fuck,” he said and laughed. He threw his arms wide. “Everyone on Mars likes to fuck but not me! I’m weirddddd.” 

Bee was laughing then too, not even bothering to cover the mouth. “Yeah, yeah, I guess that is weird. You think my fin isn’t?” 

Mick shrugged. “It’s no big deal. It’s more common to . . . float.” The words weren’t coming out right anymore which meant the bubblegum was doing its job. Just like it was supposed to. “Is float a good way to say it? I . . . I don’t know.” 

“Nonconforming?” Bee asked. 

Mick didn’t know that word but it seemed big and seemed right so he nodded. “Yeah, that. A lot more common than . . . not fucking.” 

“Maybe we should switch social circles,” Bee said. “Because yours seems pretty cool.” 

Mick shook his head before he could stop himself. “What? Jay and Sasha? Nah, they have boring lives! Me? I’m the king of the Freeway! Jay and Sasha are the worst, really. You wouldn’t like them at all, trust me.” 

The black in Bee’s fine was starting to look less black and more like the deep expanse of space. If Mick squinted, he was pretty sure he could see stars and galaxies and swirling colors. The pink was still solid, so Mick kept the pronouns straight in his brain. Mick likes staring at the space on Bee’s head though. He tried to see constellations even though he didn’t know any. 

“I’ll trust you,” Bee said and pointed a finger at him. “But only because we’ll be spending six plus years together.” 

“Hey, hey! Those last three years maybe aren’t . . . going to be three years? How does time work again?” Mick took another bite of the bubblegum and loved the way that it made the inside of his mouth numb. Also the beginning of his throat. 

“Times sucks,” Bee said, taking the bubblegum back and taking a bite as well. “As so does gender.” 

“And so does sex!” Mick said, grabbing a random foil package and holding it up as a toast since he had nothing better. 

Bee just laughed and toasted the package with the bubblegum. 

“To sex and gender,” Bee said. “The two things that don’t make sense.” 

Mick giggled. “You know, even if I do have to spend another three years on this ship with you, I don’t think it’ll matter. It won’t be too bad. With you and me, I mean. You’re pretty cool.” 

Bee gave him a smile and even handed back the bubblegum. “You’re pretty cool too, no matter what your friends say.” 

Mick didn’t have a response to that and since the room was beginning the spin into a mess of colors and shapes, he didn’t think now was the right time to get sentimental. He clumsily tucked the bubblegum into his pocket to save for later and leaned back against the wall to enjoy the sensation while it lasted. 

Directly across from him, Bee was having the exact same trip, probably watching the room spin apart and marveling at what it was becoming. To Mick’s surprise, the fin didn’t become a mess like the rest of his senses. It was clear and obvious and still pink and black, and he couldn’t help but sigh in relief. One less thing to worry about. 

Mick smiled at Bee. Three years would be nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> token straight? what about token ace?
> 
> Mick deserves better


	9. Mick sobers up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not sure how much i like this chapter but it gets us where we need to go

Priscilla had taken away the bubblegum once she had found them drooling in the hallway. Of course, Mick didn’t realize it had been taken away until he had sobered up a bit. She said it wasn’t needed and that they had plenty of resources. 

Now, Mick and Bee—who’s fin had turned a lovely shade of purple-like blue—were told to stay in the control room. They apparently weren’t supposed to leave, and Priscilla promised she would bring them all the food they needed. Bee seemed okay with that. Mick was definitely not. 

“Come on,” he said, pacing back and forth in front of Bee who was reclining in one of the oversized chairs. "We can't just sit in here and wait for the trip to be over!" 

"Why not?" Bee asked, but he was picking at his fingers too, obviously restless and wanting to do something. “It’s the safest. Do I have to remind you that we still are in space and a hundred million things could kill us at any moment? It was lucky that Priscilla and Cecilia keep the atmosphere of their ships saturated with enough oxygen.” 

Mick hadn’t thought of that before. 

“I’ll be bored if I just stay here,” he said, as if that were a valid argument. “And I don’t want to be bored.” 

“You sometimes sound like a child,” Bee said. 

Mick nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been told that before.” 

They both straightened to attention as the keypad at the door beeped and then panel slid open. Priscilla was rushing in before either of them could say anything, diving for the control pad. She opened some sort of containment and pulled out what looked—clothes? Mick wasn't entirely sure. 

His question was immediately answered when Priscilla selected a single item and slipped it onto her head. It looked hard, not like cloth, and molded around her horns and eyes. 

Not just clothes then. 

_Armor_. 

"What's going on?" he asked. "Priscilla. Hey, answer me! What's going on?" 

“Attack,” Prisiclla said with a growl. She opened another drawer and pulled out what Mick could only guess was a weapon. 

He couldn’t see any barrels for bullets but there was definitely one part that looked like a wicked blade. Mick gulped and tried not to show how much that scared him. Even on Mars he preferred a more passive route in confrontations. He’d seen plenty of carnage already and if stopping one more casualty was possible, he would prefer to take it. Besides, he was more of a fisticuffs kind of guy. Bruises were cooler scars than missing fingers. 

“Attack,” Priscilla repeated. “I have to go.” 

Now wearing her new protection and carrying something that was so obviously dangerous, Priscilla rushed out of the room, bearing her teeth in a snarl and looking angrier than she had ever looked. Bee and Mick exchanged a look. 

“You wanna go?” Mick asked. 

“It’s probably gonna be dangerous,” Bee said. He looked just as scared as Mick felt. 

“Yeah, and I was bored,” Mick said. “If I go out there, I’ll be not-bored.” 

“But you might also be dead,” Bee said. 

Mick grinned because that was always an afterthought for him. “That’s a chance I always take,” he said and rushed out the door that Priscilla hadn’t bothered locking behind herself. 

Outside of the control room, alarms were blaring and lights were flashing. Not a lot like what Mick was used to. It wasn’t red and loud and panicked. Instead, purple lights faded in and out and the alarms were more low pitched, throbbing in Mick’s chest like some sort of engine. It was almost calming, except for the fact that Mick knew that something was wrong.

He looked left and then right, trying to decide where Priscilla had gone off to but there was no sign of her. He chose a direction at random and took off. He wasn’t going to check but then he felt Bee besides him and felt better.

“What do you usually do for fun on Mars anyway?” Mick asked. 

Bee shrugged. “I usually stare into the mirror until I lose all sense of self and I forget who I actually am,” he said. “You know, the usual stuff.” 

“The usual stuff is getting drunk and doing drugs,” Mick said. “You know, like I do.” 

“I couldn’t even afford the usual stuff,” Bee said. “I was broke, remember.” 

“Hey, when we get back to Mars, I’ll show you how to get cheap, good booze,” Mick said, giving Bee one of his patented, confident smiles. Did he have a patented smile? Jay was the type of person with a patented smile. Mick was pretty sure he wasn’t that kind of person. 

“When we get back to Mars,” Bee said with a smirk. “You know you’ve got a lot of optimism to say when and not if.” 

Mick hadn’t even thought of that. Optimism was that thing where you thought life was good, right? Mick couldn’t always remember. He was gonna take a wild guess and say it was the good one since Bee didn’t seem like the type to make fun of him. 

“So far Priscilla and Cecilia have taken care of us,” Mick said. “I trust them to keep us alive.” 

Bee grabbed his arm and yanked him to a stop, slamming the back against the wall right before the corner Mick was about to go around. They were directly under one of the purple lights which meant they both looked like aliens. Mick didn’t have a chance to comment on that because Bee slapped a hand over his mouth and glared at him when he tried to talk. 

“Sshh!” he hissed. 

Mick licked Bee’s palm and smirked when he snatched his hand away with a look of disgust. “What’s going on?” he whispered to show he could be just as quiet. “Why did we stop?” 

“You’re disgusting,” Bee said. “And immature.” But he let Mick go and gestured around the corner. “But I didn’t think that was safe and since Priscilla and Cecilia have done such a good job of keeping us alive so far, I didn’t want to ruin their streak.” 

Mick peeked around the corner to see what Bee was even talking about. 

A figure that was definitely not Priscilla or Cecilia was crouched in the hallway. It had to crouch because it was so large. It had a large, square head with bone or tooth tusks that jutted out of its mouth straight forward. Where Priscilla and Cecilia were narrow and lithe, this thing was bulky and muscled. Two arms the same size as its legs, no tail, and six eyes that were a near radioactive green—the thing looked like a machine of war.

“Oh fuck,” Mick said, and Bee pulled him back around the corner. 

“See?” he said. “That must be what the alarms are about. We don’t know how hostile it is, and I’d rather get back to Mars breathing and with all my limbs.” 

“But that doesn’t make an interesting story,” Mick said. 

“You can’t tell a story if you aren’t alive,” Bee countered. 

Mick thought about it. “Fair point.” 

“I say we wait for Priscilla or Cecilia,” Bee said. “They will know what to do and are probably strong enough to deal with that thing.” 

“Fuck that,” Mick said. “I wanna see.” 

He pushed Bee’s hands away and turned the corner. The creature hadn’t moved much, still standing in front of the door and messing with the keypad. With its huge claws, it didn’t seem to have the dexterity that Priscilla or Cecilia had to operate the device. That was reassuring since, if the thing did attack, Mick would just have to jump into the nearest room and close the door and he would be okay. At least, okay until the creature managed to unlock the door. 

“Woah, Bee, it’s even uglier up closer,” he blurted. 

Because the thing was. Instead of curves and rounded edges like Priscilla and Cecilia, it was blocky and awkward.

But it didn’t seem to like being called ugly. It turned towards Mick with a growl, and spines on the back of its head rattled against themselves as they rose up in an attempt at intimidation. It worked because Mick now wanted to pee his pants. Still, the thing didn’t immediately attack, which was a good sign. Maybe Mick stood a chance. 

“Hey, what’s up?” he called, raising his hand in greeting and wondering if waving was a universal thing or just what humans did. 

“Mick, holy fuck, I’m gonna kill you if that thing doesn’t do it first,” Bee said, still hiding around the corner. 

“Easy, I know what I’m doing,” Mick said. He didn’t know what he was doing. He tried talking to the thing again. “Hey, bud, what are you doing on the ship?” 

Before the thing could respond, a door halfway down the hall between Mick and it opened, and Priscilla burst out, snarling when she spotted the creature. She looked equally ferocious with the armor she had put on in the engine room. She held the weapon—gun? Sword? Laser blaster?—in two of her hands. With the other two, she grabbed the creature right below the jaw, slamming it up against the wall of the ship. 

The creature growled and rumbled, and Priscilla’s translator managed to pick up what was being said. Which was great, because Mick had no idea what was going on. 

“—know why I am here,” it said. The translator used the same voice for Priscilla so it was weird to hear her talk but not actually talk. “Get hands off. Remove! Touch not, ugly." 

"You are the one who is in the wrong place," Priscilla said, snapping her teeth close to the thing's throat. "This is my ship. Not yours. Explain why you are here." 

"Check," the creature said. The translator seemed to have a hard time with its language. “Same check. Like before. You know." 

"Not yet," Priscilla said, pressing the thing against the wall even harder with all four of her hands. "It's too soon. You are here too soon. There is something off." 

The thing growled in her face, and if it said anything else, the translator didn't pick it up. Priscilla just bared her teeth back. Mick took the tense opportunity to sidle back around the corner and hide with Bee again. 

“Are you insane!” he asked, grabbing Mick by the shoulders and shoving his back against the wall. “You could have been killed!” 

"Yeah but I wasn't," Mick said, shrugging but not bothering to push away Bee’s hands. "Come on, haven't you ever wanted to live a little?" 

Bee was chewing his lip, looking completely uncertain with both himself and Mick. Finally, he let go of Mick’s shirt and stepped away. He was looking at his feet, either embarrassed or just angrier than before. Mick wasn’t entirely sure until Bee looked up again. His jaw was set in determination and his fin only flickered a bit before remaining the same purple-blue. 

“Fine,” he relented, finally letting go of Mick and stepping away. “Fine, but . . . I really don’t want you dying on me.”

“You’d be the first,” Mick said. 

Bee wouldn’t let go of his hand, even when Mick tried to walk back around the corner, and he was pulled to a stop. He was used to people holding him back but not quite so literally. He smiled back without thinking and gave Bee’s hand a squeeze.

They turned the corner but this time together. 

This time, they didn’t go completely unnoticed. 

“What?” the creature said, eyes landing on them immediately. It snarled and shoved Priscilla away, like it had been able to do that the whole time but only chose to do it now. “Human.” 

Priscilla stepped between it and Bee and Mick, and the translator crackled out of distance of the other creature. She bared her teeth and drew some sort of space gun with two of her hands. It hummed as it charged, and for the first time, Mick considered that _maybe_ he had gotten himself into a bit of trouble this time. Maybe this was a bit too much, and he had Priscilla hissing at him to let him know that he had fucked up. 

“Back,” she snarled at him. Even the translator was having a hard time keeping up with her. Most of it was rapid clicks and whistles. 

The other creature was looking at them darkly, and Mick couldn’t tell what it was going to do. Attack? Walk away? Continue the talk with Priscilla? He had no way of telling. Plus, now that Priscilla had stepped further away, her translator wasn’t picking up the other creature’s language. 

Mick kinda wished that both of them had translators. At least then he would know how fucked he really was. 

“Who are they, Priscilla?” Bee asked. 

“A checkpoint,” Priscilla said over her shoulder. “It was . . . expected. But not this soon. This is—” The translator gave up. Priscilla huffed in irritation and bared her teeth. “I do not. . . I cannot say . . . words are too hard.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Bee said. “We’ll, uh, we’ll try to figure this out. I hope?” 

“I’m starting to think that your idea to hide was the better one,” Mick said. 

The new creature growled something and then reached into the bags that were strapped around its waist. It pulled out something small before applying it to its face. Mick was scared it was some kind of new weapon until the creature growled, and the device started translating. 

“I am powerful,” it said. The programmed voice was a deep male, and Mick hated to admit that it fit. “Powerful is . . . my title.” 

“So like your name?” Mick said. Because, he was going to be honest, that was badass.

The creature nodded. “I am Powerful. I stop ship. I search ship. I see human. Not allowed.”

“We got lost,” Bee said. “Priscilla . . . well, she was helping us get back home.” 

“Home?” Powerful repeated. 

“Mars,” Mick said. “We’re just trying to get back to Mars.” 

Priscilla clicked something that the translator didn’t catch, and Powerful growled back. They continued to have a private conversation that was outside english, until finally Powerful nodded. Priscilla even put her gun away, taking a few steps back and turning to look at Mick and Bee. 

“Powerful will let us pass,” she said. “Misunderstanding. There was confusion.” 

Powerful gave them one last nod before turning and disappearing down the hallway. Priscilla didn’t seem too bothered by that. She was much more concerned with picking them up completely off their feet and carrying them in the opposite direction. Mick didn’t have the chance to marvel over how strong she was as she pushed through a door and tossed both Bee and him down on the floor. 

“Stay,” she said simply and serious. “I must talk with Powerful. The ship will move.” 

And then she was gone. 

Mick looked at Bee. 

Bee looked at Mick. 

The fin turned to a reddish pink, and Bee laughed. 

“I’ve never done anything like that!” she admitted. 

Mick smiled too. “I thought we were going to die.” 

“I only thought that for a little bit.”

“I think that all the time.” 

Bee laughed again and then sighed, slumping down against the wall and kicking her feet wide. She looked more relaxed than ever, even though they had just had a near death experience. She even closed her eyes and tipped her head back, leaning against the wall. Mick studied her before relaxing for himself. 

“I think,” Bee said. “That we’ll make it back to Mars, safe and sound.” 

Mick didn’t know about safe and sound, but the idea of going home was better than anything at the moment. He just wanted to go home, and he really believed that they were going to make it.


	10. Mick makes his way home

Mick and Bee settled into an easy routine on the ship. 

Wake up. Eat. Bother Priscilla and Cecilia. Try to find out where the bubblegum had been hidden. Stare at the stars. 

They spent hours together up in a sort of observatory room on the ship. The material it was made out of was see-through, so Bee and Mick could watch the planets and galaxies fly past as they travelled. They laid on their backs, staring up at the endless expanse of space and didn’t talk about anything in particular. 

Sometimes, they just sat in silence. Sometimes, they talked about people they knew back on Mars. 

Mick told Bee about Jay and Sasha and Benjamin and all the adventures that they had had as kids. He told Bee about how amazing Jay and Sasha were and how he didn’t compare to them, and how he had lied about every aspect of his life and they still looked at him with disdain and disgust. They didn’t think he noticed, he admitted, but he did. 

The stars had a way of making you tell the truth. 

Bee told him about all of the friends back on Mars that she had known. Not that many. She told him about her rundown apartment, dead end job, and pointless existence. The idea that she could die without anyone noticing or caring had driven her to the agency looking for people to make other planets habitable. 

She had originally been from earth. 

That made Mick sit up. He had never known anyone who had been from earth. Ever. 

“What’s it like?” he asked. 

Bee looked at him. “What? Earth?” 

Mick nodded. “I was born on Mars.” 

Bee laid back down, crossing her arms behind her head so she could look back up at the stars. “I don’t remember much,” she said. “I was only there for a couple years before my parents sent me to Mars. I lived in a childcare center for most of my life. And then this happened.”

She thought for a moment.

“Earth is deader than Mars,” she finally said. “It’s all barren in a way that’s different. On Mars, the dirt is red and empty because it’s supposed to be. We have the plants that aren’t supposed to be there, but on Earth, everything is empty and you _know_ it’s not supposed to be. The dirt is a washed-out brown and you know that there’s supposed to be something there but there’s not and that makes you panic. It makes you sad. You know it’s supposed to be better than what it is, but it’s too far gone to help or change.” 

She sighed like it was exhausting to even think about. 

“My parents were government workers,” she said. “Not, like, the fancy kind. The government was paying them to try to farm the land to make it livable again. And by paying, I mean they got just enough food and water to survive and nothing else. And by making livable again, I mean they could barely get a seed to sprout in the dirt before it was killed by either radiation or heat.” 

She put her arms up, gesturing to the entire stretch of night sky that they were allowed to look at. 

“Imagine living on a planet where you can barely breathe, where the atmosphere is in shreds, and where what little life exists in radiated past recognition,” Bee said. “Because that’s what Earth is. At least, that’s what I remember before being sent away.” 

Mick thought about it. “And I thought Mars was bad.” 

“It’s not a competition,” Bee said. “From personal experience, I think they both suck.” 

Mick nodded. “That makes sense.” 

“Life has always been like this,” Bee said with a sigh. “I don’t know why I thought leaving Mars would fix anything. Leaving Earth didn’t do anything.” 

Mick sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, but maybe going back to Mars will make things better. You’ve been leaving this whole time, but you’ve never tried going back, have you?” 

Bee thought about it. 

“And if that doesn’t work,” Mick said. “Drugs have always helped me.” 

Bee snorted and reached over to punch his hip. It was on his bone and probably hurt her more than it hurt him. “I should’ve guessed you’d say that,” she said. “You know I used to be completely sober before I met you.” 

Mick just smiled at her. “Most of my teachers were like that too.” 

Bee snorted again and then rolled over, curling in on herself as she laughed and cackled like Mick had said the funniest thing ever. Mick couldn’t help but laugh alone with her. It was the first time he could remember laughing with someone instead of everyone laughing at him. It actually felt right. 

“I think I’ll give Mars a second chance,” Bee said once she finally recovered. “Maybe you’re right.” 

Mick looked up at the night sky that was still zooming past them. He really hoped he was right too. 

The door opened before Mick or Bee could say anything else, and Cecilia walked in with Priscilla close on her tail. The two aliens were holding hands and chattering at each other in their own language. Either their translators were off or their words had no English equivalent. That question was answered when Cecilia reached up to the side of her face and clicked on the translator. 

"Space and stars have moved around us," she said in her usual dramatic way. "Time had passed and we have arrived at the place that you call home." 

"We're back?!" Mick said, scrambling to his feet. 

Bee was quick to follow him. “Are you sure?” 

“To assume that our ship’s navigational system is somehow flawed is ridiculous,” Cecilia said and then gestured to the huge viewing window with one of her hands. “We are sure, and you can see.”

Both Bee and Mick turned to look through the glass again, and they both audibly gasped when they saw the round, red smudge of Mars in the distance. And it still was in the far distance. Mick could see the ring of the Freeway slowly rotating in its orbit and the occasional flash of a rocket. If he caught the planet in the right rotation, he could see the bulge of the dome too.

Home. 

That was home.

They were still pretty far away but they were close enough to see it, and that was close enough for Mick. 

Mars was close enough to reach out and grab. Almost. 

“They’re ships must be faster than ours,” Bee murmured. “It took us three years. Not—” She trailed off, counting on her fingers for a moment and then giving up. 

“I just can’t wait to stand on earth again,” Mick said. “I mean, Mars. Dirt.” 

“We’re just excited to get back,” Bee said, and Mick nodded in agreement. 

Cecilia sniffed and clicked her tongue. “I understand the desire for home,” she said. “I feel the same longing for my Priscilla.” She looked over Bee and nodded, almost in appreciation. “Our time together was not bad, and I appreciate your perspective, though your language is very lacking.” 

Bee just laughed. “I agree, it is very lacking.” 

Priscilla pushed into the room just then, talking with Cecilia in their own language that the translator didn’t bother with. They talked back and forth for a moment, gesturing with all eight of their hands as they talked. 

Bee and Mick exchanged a look, and Bee smiled. 

“We will give you a ship,” Priscilla said finally as Cecilia turned and hurried out of the room. “We cannot get close to your home. You are dangerous to us. We do not want to be seen.” 

“I understand,” Bee said, speaking before Mick could. 

Priscilla nodded and hand-in-hand-in-hand-in-hand with Cecilia, she led the way out of the room and down the hall. Bee and Mick followed. It was a silent trip through the winding halls, Priscilla scanning her claws to open doors and type in codes. They came to a huge docking bay with the oh-so-familiar arching ceiling and empty blackness.

It was where everything had started, if Mick remembered right. 

No, it had started back on Mars in the backroom of a shitty bar with a syringe of mysterious liquid. It had started with Mick making one of the worst decisions of his life.

Or maybe the best. How else would he have met Bee and gone on such a wild adventure. He didn’t even care that Jay and Sasha wouldn’t believe him if he ever had the chance to tell them. It made it sort of private and personal, and Mick had never had anything in his life that was private and personal.

Priscilla and Cecilia led the way across the floor, apparently able to navigate just fine in the dark before arriving at a small space pod that looked to be like some sort of escape vessel. With a tap of her claws, Priscilla opened a door in the pod’s side and stepped aside to allow Mick and Bee access to the inside.

“Should be easy to control,” Priscilla said. “Controls to go, controls to stop. Nothing more.” 

“Thank you so much,” Bee said already stepping forward to climb into the ship. 

Mick would let her have the controls. At this point, he wanted to get home more than he wanted to be the one to fly them home. He didn’t follow Bee inside though, not right away. He stopped next to Priscilla, who was already clicking at Cecilia in their own language. They would probably both like to get back to their normal lives just as much as Mick and Bee wanted to get back to theirs. Wow, now that Mick thought about it, Priscilla and Cecilia’s lives really had been turned upside down by them.

“It was great meeting you,” Mick said, because that was what he had been taught to say when leaving an important meeting. “I had fun.” 

Priscilla looked at him and blinked all of her eyes slowly. For a moment, Mick wasn’t sure if she understood what he was saying. Maybe her translator had already been turned off and they couldn’t understand what was being said at all.

“Fun,” she finally repeated, as if testing out the word. She then nodded, bobbing her head awkwardly like she was copying something she had seen Mick and Bee do but had never done it herself. “Yes, it was fun.” 

Mick smiled and shot both Priscilla and Cecilia thumbs up. “And you two aren’t that bad to hang out with.” 

“This was too much trouble,” Cecilia said. 

“We are glad you are alive,” Priscilla said. 

Mick beamed because that was honestly the best he was probably going to get. “I hope you guys are able to get back to whatever planet you call your own home too,” he said.

“I have told you before,” Cecilia said with a smile in Priscilla’s direction. “No matter where we are, Cecilia is my home. And my everything.”

Priscilla blinked all of her eyes and wrapped her tail around Cecilia’s. “Love,” she said in her same eloquent way that Mick had gotten used to. Honestly, with the way she was able to talk about her feelings, she almost reminded Mick of Jay.

He gave them a two-fingered salute and then climbed into the small pod. He easily found his way to the cockpit. Bee was already at the controls, the fin a vibrant green color that Mick had never seen before. He took the only other seat available and strapped himself in. He had learned by now that it was always better to have a seatbelt on, especially when you were in space. 

He tried to catch Bee’s attention. 

“Ze, zer,” Bee said without looking up from the buttons and levers. Ze was too busy figuring out how everything worked apparently. Oh well. Ze had answered Mick’s question.

“How long do you think it’ll take us?” he asked instead. 

The entire room rumbled around them as the huge docking bay opened up to space. Bee pressed a button to open up their own viewing window, and Mick almost gasped as the stars and planets that stretched out before them. He clenched his hands around the straps of the seat belt and clung on the one way he knew how. 

Bee didn’t even double check to make sure he was ready. Ze pressed a couple more buttons and then grabbed the twin levers and yank upward, gunning the rockets and sending them rising upwards. 

It was the fast motion that Mick had forgotten how much he hated.

He just clung to his seat the best he could and let Bee do zer job. 

And Bee knew what ze was doing. 

The rockets had to be better than the ones on Mars because the next thing Mick knew, they were blazing passed several stars and twisting to avoid the rock debris of a planet’s orbit. With the alien tech, though, the ship was hardly in danger. And in Bee’s hands, they flew with ease with no threat of crashing. At least, not yet. 

Mars was getting closer and closer by the second. 

“I’m scared of going back,” Bee said suddenly.

Mick sat straight up in his seat. “Wait a minute. You’re driving though!” 

Bee was sitting ramrod straight in zer chair with zer hands white-knuckled around the levers. Ze was staring out the front window, not moving, as if frozen in fear. 

Mick had seen that look before. He and Jay and Sasha had looked like that for most of their childhood. It made him panic in the same way. 

“Yeah, but I thought I would be okay, but now that Mars is _there_ and we are heading _there_ , I realize that I don’t really wanna _be there_ ,” Bee said. Zer voice was starting to shake but at least zer grip on the controls was steady. “There’s nothing there for me. I’m going back to _nothing_ , Mick!”

“Not nothing,” Mick said. They were traveling at light years of speed and he was trying to talk down a panicked driver, holy hell. “You’re going back home.” 

“My home was sold,” Bee said. “I said that before. We’ve been gone for more than three years, Mick, my home has to be gone right now!” 

Their entire ship turned into a corkscrew spin as Bee dodged a slew of asteroids and space junk, keeping them out of harm’s way but still clearly panicked. Mick didn’t dare unbuckle himself though, with the debris outside still a threat. They were both shouting at each other like they needed to be heard over the silence of space.

“Home isn’t a place!” he said instead. “It’s . . . it’s a feeling!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Bee snapped. 

“I really don’t know,” Mick said. “I just heard that on the TV one time!” 

Bee let out a string of curses and yanked the controls backwards, bringing the ship to a roaring stop as the engines struggled to do what ze wanted. Mick rocked forward in his seat. The seatbelts almost strangled him. 

They floated in empty space, with only the hum of the ship’s engines stabilizing them to keep them upright. The cabin was deathly quiet, and Mick was horribly aware of his own breathing. He tried not to think about it, but it wasn’t long before he was trying to control his inhales and exhales. It was too hard when he was thinking about it. 

“Home isn’t a feeling,” Bee said, being the one to break the silence. 

“Well, it’s not a place either,” Mick said. “At least, not _really_.” He knew that much.

Bee just buried zer face in zer hands with a groan. “Home is complicated.” 

Mick didn’t need someone to tell him that. He stared out the front window, out at the red circle of Mars that was now closer than ever. The planet was turned so that he got the full view of the dome from end to end, one side lit up with buildings and bright neon, and the other more dead and shadowy. He knew which side he was going home to. Maybe, if someone was looking up at the sky, they would be able to see their ship. 

He would never know. 

“Maybe I don’t have a home anymore,” Bee said. “In any sense of the word. My apartment has probably been destroyed. My family is still back on earth. I don’t have any friends on Mars, and I don’t have money to buy any either.” 

Mick thought about buying friends. He thought about Jay and Sasha. 

“What about earth?” he suggested. “I mean, I don’t really know what’s going on down there anymore, but it sounds like you still have a place there.” 

Bee sighed. “A place with radiation and death and decay.” 

Mick fiddled with his seatbelt. “I think every place has that stuff.” 

Bee snorted a laugh, waiting a moment, and then looked back up. Ze grabbed the controls again, though they didn’t start moving immediately. “I think you’re right,” ze said. “I’m thinking about this too much.” 

“And hey,” Mick said. “If nowhere else works, you can always live with me!” 

Bee shot him a look and a smile. “You have enough room at your place?” 

“No,” Mick said. “But we can always make room.” 

Bee laughed at that and then took a deep breath and relaxed. “Okay,” ze said. “Okay.” 

With a rumble of the engines, Bee eased them back into motion, and once again, they were on their way back to Mars. Mick didn’t exactly relax, but the idea of landing on the Freeway was enough to make him excited all over again. 

And Bee knew what ze was doing. With Priscilla and Cecilia’s amazing ship combined with zer expertise, it didn’t take long before they were falling in line to dock on the huge metal structure. The flashing lights kept them in line, and Bee eased them downwards with the perfect amount of control. With a heavy thump that shook the entire ship, they latched into place and began sliding along with the planet’s rotation, gentle and soothing, and both Mick and Bee sighed in relief at the exact same time. 

And they burst out laughing at the same time too.

It would take them a moment to reach the dismount station where their ship could actually be allowed to land on the ground or at very least allow them to dismount.

“Well,” Bee said. “We made it.” 

“Yeah,” Mick said, craning his head to look down out of the windows. “You know, it really hasn’t changed that much in three years.” 

“Not much does,” Bee said, sitting back in zer chair. 

Mick tried to recognize a building or a road or at least a billboard. He never realized just how different Mars looked from above. If it wasn’t such a brilliant red, he would have a hard time knowing just exactly where they were. 

With a hum, their ship locked into place and the airlock to the dismount tower hissed as it activated. The lights outside lit up green, signaling that it was safe for them to open their doors. Mick fumbled with the straps on his seatbelt before managing to get it undone. He stood and stretched loudly, groaning with relief as his muscles worked under the gravity he was used to. He walked to the door and opened it to the short hallway between themselves and the dismount tower. 

Bee didn’t move. 

“Hey, are you coming?” Mick asked, pausing in the doorway. 

Bee was staring at zer hands again, lost in thought. 

“Bee!” Mick called. 

Ze blinked and then looked over at him with an easy smile. “I think you’re right,” ze said. “I think I might try Earth instead.” 

“Oh.”

Bee’s fin changed from green to pink polka dots, and Bee didn’t seem bothered at all. “You’re right. There’s nothing on Mars for me anymore. No home, no friends, no reason to stay. And all of that might be on Earth.” 

“Okay,” Mick said. “Well, uh, fly safe.” 

Bee just smiled and gave him a two-fingered salute. “And don’t stop being you.” 

Mick stepped across the doorway and shut the door. The air hissed as it sealed, and he hurried to get to the safety of the tower before everything disconnected. The people inside running the screens and doors were too busy to acknowledge him right away. Once he was safely inside, Mick was able to look out the window and watch as the ship turned and joined the dismounting traffic. The ship looked so different from anything human, that Mick was surprised that they had even been allowed to land. 

He watched until he couldn’t see Bee through the windshield anymore. He watched until he saw the ship take off and then disappear around the curve of the planet, heading towards Earth just like Bee said. 

Mick actually felt like he had lost someone. 

“Who was that?” one of the workers asked, jolting Mick out of his thoughts. 

“That was Bee,” Mick said. He wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to say. “Just Bee. Named after a goddess from earth. We went on the craziest adventure together.” 

“Yeah, yeah, don’t we all,” the worker said, heaving a huge pile of steel cable over his shoulder. He jerked his chin at the elevator that currently sat open and empty. “Are you heading down?” 

Mick nodded. He checked the skyline one last time for any sign of the ship or Bee. When he saw nothing, he turned and walked to the elevator, squishing himself as out of the way and in a corner as possible. 

It only took a few minutes for other passengers from other ships to dismount and once the elevator was full, the workers shut the doors and sent them down.

From there, the elevator opened into an open building that made Mick think of a bus stop. He walked out of the glass double doors, squinting up at the sun through the dome. It was brighter than anything that he had experienced in the last couple years. 

Years. Days. It felt like he had been gone for only a week. Maybe two. 

Time was weird. 

Someone should come up with a better calendar. 

Mick stuffed his hands in his pockets, chose a direction, and started walking. Hopefully he would recognize something eventually and find his way home before dark.


	11. Mick goes back to drugs

Mick found his apartment. Eventually. 

He didn’t find it before nightfall and slept in an alleyway, under the protection of a dumpster. But the next morning, before breakfast even, Mick found a street he recognized and from there he found another street he recognized and another street and then buildings and then his building. 

His door was unlocked, and he didn’t realize why until he stepped into the single room. His keys sat on the counter of his small kitchenette. Mick had forgotten them this whole time. 

It was an odd thought to have.

He locked the door behind him and scooped up his keys, tucking them into his pocket. 

He checked the fridge next, not expecting much. 

There were a couple containers. Some of them were just empty. Others had food that had rotted away so long ago that it wasn’t recognizable anymore. The electricity had been turned off at some point, meaning that everything was guaranteed to have gone bad at this point. 

With a sigh, Mick shut the fridge. 

He didn’t have credits to spend. He didn’t even know where his wallet was. He would have to work on that. It wasn’t that big of a deal. He knew restaurants that threw out perfectly good food that he could survive on while he figured out a way to make money. 

Three years. 

He had been gone for three years. 

Mick wondered if Jay and Sasha had noticed. They were always so busy with their own lives, living adventures, being important. Mick smiled to himself when he realized that now he had that same claim. He had seen _aliens_. He bet Jay and Sasha hadn’t seen aliens before. 

Mick collapsed on his couch, right in the middle where it dipped the deepest. It was almost like sitting on the ground. 

From where he sat, he could see out the single window that his apartment had. He got a great view of the dome, and, when the planet was in the right rotation, he got a great view of the earth as well. That’s what he was looking for at the moment. He squinted to catch some sort of glimpse of the brown planet. 

It took a couple long, lonely minutes before he spotted it. 

The earth looked normal. Like nothing special. Like it always looked. If Mick didn’t know that Bee was on there, then he wouldn’t have given the planet a second glance. Now, he sat and stared at it, watching it, looking for any sign of life. 

He wondered if Bee was doing the same for Mars.

His landline rang, making him jump. 

Nobody called him, ever, and Mick was always surprised when he realized that the old, clunky phone still worked sometimes. As he pushed himself to his feet and hurried to where it was bolted to the wall, he wondered just how many times it had rung over three years and he had never picked up. 

He picked up this time, propping the phone on his shoulder. 

“Hello?” It felt weird answering a phone after so long. 

“Oh, thank _god_ I was able to get a hold of you this time.” 

Mick almost recognized the voice and it took him a moment before it registered. “Sasha?!” 

“Don’t act so surprised,” Sasha said. “You act like you haven’t been avoiding my calls for a month. I didn’t realize that you would be so hard to get a hold of.” 

Mick almost told her why he had been missing. Almost. She was talking too fast before he could get a word in, and wasn’t that Sasha anyway? 

“I’m just glad you finally picked up this time,” she continued. “I mean, come on, Mick. Have you been drunk for a month? You know that isn’t healthy, especially with Old Town booze. I thought you were sourcing it somewhere better these days. You should, you know. The extra credits are worth it. The Old Town stuff can kill you, literally.” 

Mick didn’t get the chance that he didn’t have any credits to begin with, let alone extra ones. 

“I’m calling because I wanted us to get together,” Sasha was saying. “Us like you and me and Juno. I think it’s been too long since we had the chance to sit down again. So, what do you say?” 

She paused, and Mick finally had the chance to speak. “The Pour and Floor?” he said stupidly. It was the only thing he could think to say. 

“Perfect,” Sasha was already saying. “That works for me. I’ll get on it. Call Juno for me, will you? You know he doesn’t pick up the phone when he knows I’m calling. Besides, I think you and him are closer anyway. See you soon.” 

She didn’t even give him the chance to say goodbye. Her end of the phone line clicked sharply and Mick was left listening to the dial tone. He only waited a moment himself before hanging up too. 

Jay and Sasha. He hadn’t seen them in three years. Maybe longer. Who knew at this point? Mick didn’t even know what month it was. Someone needed to invent a new calendar. 

Mick picked up the phone and dialed one of the few numbers he had memorized. It wrang for a moment before the person on the other line picked up. Jay’s normal, grouchy voice greeted Mick, just as angry as ever about being disturbed. 

“What?” 

“Hey, Jay!” Mick said. It was almost weird talking to both of his childhood friends after being in space for so long. “Are you busy these days?” 

“I’m always busy,” Jay snapped, and Mick could hear the shuffling of papers in the background as Jay worked on whatever he was working on. He sighed into the receiver. “What do you want, Mick?” 

“Oh, nothing much,” Mick said. “I just think you and I should get together again. It’s been way too long. What do you say? Meet at the Pour and Floor like we always did?” 

“I just said I was busy, Mick,” Jay said. The papers continued shuffling. “I don’t know if I’ll even have time.” 

“Come on,” Mick pressed. “It’s been . . . forever.” He wasn’t sure how long it actually had been. 

Jay just sighed and there was a moment of almost silence. Finally, the papers stopped moving. “Fine,” Jay said. “Fine. I think I have the time. You said the Pour and Floor?” 

Mick could hear the disgust in Jay’s voice but he was smiling anyway. “Yeah! It’ll be just like old times, trust me.” 

Jay muttered something about how horrible the ‘old times’ used to be and then hung up, leaving Mick on the phone just like Sasha had. Mick didn’t let it bother him. He hung up and collapsed back on his couch, looking back out the window. 

Earth was now a bit lower in the sky, as Mars rotated and the day continued. Mick almost wished that Bee was here. He wanted Jay and Sasha to meet his new friend, and he wanted someone with him so that Jay and Sasha would believe him. They never believed the stories he told. Not after he lied about the Freeway as a kid. 

But come on! He had been a kid! Of course he wanted to be the coolest one on the block! Lying about the Freeway had been the easiest way to do that. 

Mick just stared up at earth. He didn’t know where Bee was, he didn’t know what day it was. Nobody on Mars knew that actual aliens existed and not just Ancient Martians. Nobody, except for him. And no one would believe him if he told them. 

He was frustrated, but he was also too tired to actually care anymore. 

Mick curled up on the couch and pulled his knees to his chest. He was tired enough that he felt like if he did fall asleep, it would be for a year or more. He closed his eyes and let himself drift off. But that wasn’t for long.

His hand brushed against his pocket and the lump that he felt made him pause. He fumbled to pull the bag out of and he cracked his eyes open just enough to get a peek at it. 

Bubblegum. It was the bubblegum. The only physical proof that his entire adventure had happened. He wondered if Bee had slipped it in his pocket while he wasn’t looking. He didn’t remember having any bubblegum left over. 

It wasn’t much. Probably enough for a bite or two and a really good trip. 

Mick tore the plastic open with his fingers, not even bothering to sit himself up. He ate half, chewing it as he stared out the window. In an hour or so, earth would dip low enough in the sky that it would be hidden by his window frame if he didn’t bother to get up. He chewed, watching the colors and world around him melt. 

Drugs were so much better when you did them in bed. 

Mick missed his bed. 

He held the last bit of bubblegum up, lining it up so that sat next to earth even though they were millions of miles apart. And then his vision blurred so much that he couldn’t see earth anymore. Or his window. Or his kitchen. He stared at the bubblegum instead, the colors going wild and his body starting to float. 

The only evidence that his adventure had happened at all. 

Mick popped it into his mouth and chewed, relishing in the way that his life and worries and problems melted away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm on tumblr @manuscript-or


End file.
